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拍品專文
"I once said that the spot paintings could be what art looks like viewed through an imaginary microscope. I love the fact that in the paintings the angst is removed ... the colours project so much joy it's hard to feel it, but it's there." — Damien Hirst
Characterized by multicolored, equal-sized and equidistant spots positioned on a white background, Ouabagenin is one of Damien Hirst’s signature signature Pharmaceutical paintings (the most famous sub-series of the Spot Paintings), which were created primarily between 1988 and 2011. Their titles were taken from a book that Hirst found in the early nineties called Biochemicals for Research and Diagnostic Reagents by the chemical company Sigma-Aldrich. The names were chosen arbitrarily by Hirst. Ouabagenin is classified as an extremely hazardous substance; traditional throughout eastern Africa, this plant derived toxic substance was used as a poison to coat arrowheads for warfare and hunting. The inclusion of such a deadly substance could be interpreted as connecting to Hirst's fascination with the thin line between life and death—a theme that runs throughout his oeuvre. Whilst the Spot Paintings are seemingly joyful symphonies of color— indeed, Hirst saw Gerhard Richter's work as a student and cites his use of color as influential to his practice—they are simultaneously underpinned by a powerful sense of discord. “If you look closely at any one of these paintings a strange thing happens,” explains Hirst, “because of the lack of repeated colors there is no harmony...in every painting there is a subliminal sense of unease; yet the colors project so much joy it’s hard to feel it, but it’s there. The horror underlying everything. The horror that can overwhelm everything at any moment” (D. Hirst, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 2006, p. 246). The dialogue between beauty and mortality lies at the heart of Hirst’s practice, and the present work.
Hirst's art often calls into question notions of belief, particularly our unwavering belief in medicine's ability to heal. Indeed, a number of other significant series, including the Medicine Cabinets and Pill Cabinets, have engaged with this theme, adopting the same tendency towards structural order and patterning as the Spot Paintings. “Art is like medicine–it can heal. Yet I’ve always been amazed at how many people believe in medicine but don’t believe in art, without questioning either” (D. Hirst, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 1997, p. 246).
Damien Hirst is perhaps the best-known British artist working today. In 1988, he made a name for himself by leading the organization of Freeze, an exhibition of student work that would later be considered considered the starting point of the influential Young British Artists or YBAs, a loosely affiliated group of Hirst and peers such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas who would dominate the British art world in the 1990s.
Hirst has continually produced ambitious, compelling, and captivating works ranging from Kaleidoscope Paintings—first made in 2001 by placing thousands of butterfly wings in intricate geometric patterns onto painted canvases—to For the Love of God (2007), a platinum cast of a human skull set with 8,601 diamonds. Hirst’s first major retrospective, The Agony and the Ecstasy, was presented by the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy, in 2004, and he was recognized in 2012 with a major retrospective at Tate Modern in London.
Like much of Hirst’s art, the Spot Paintings evoke various psychological and perceptual dichotomies: they are both calming and unnerving, beautiful and ordinary. “In the spot paintings the grid-like structure creates the beginning of a system. On each painting no two colours are the same. This ends the system; it’s a simple system. No matter how I feel as an artist or a painter, the paintings end up looking happy...I believe painting and all art should ultimately be uplifting for a viewer. I love colour. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz” (D. Hirst, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 1997, p. 246).
Characterized by multicolored, equal-sized and equidistant spots positioned on a white background, Ouabagenin is one of Damien Hirst’s signature signature Pharmaceutical paintings (the most famous sub-series of the Spot Paintings), which were created primarily between 1988 and 2011. Their titles were taken from a book that Hirst found in the early nineties called Biochemicals for Research and Diagnostic Reagents by the chemical company Sigma-Aldrich. The names were chosen arbitrarily by Hirst. Ouabagenin is classified as an extremely hazardous substance; traditional throughout eastern Africa, this plant derived toxic substance was used as a poison to coat arrowheads for warfare and hunting. The inclusion of such a deadly substance could be interpreted as connecting to Hirst's fascination with the thin line between life and death—a theme that runs throughout his oeuvre. Whilst the Spot Paintings are seemingly joyful symphonies of color— indeed, Hirst saw Gerhard Richter's work as a student and cites his use of color as influential to his practice—they are simultaneously underpinned by a powerful sense of discord. “If you look closely at any one of these paintings a strange thing happens,” explains Hirst, “because of the lack of repeated colors there is no harmony...in every painting there is a subliminal sense of unease; yet the colors project so much joy it’s hard to feel it, but it’s there. The horror underlying everything. The horror that can overwhelm everything at any moment” (D. Hirst, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 2006, p. 246). The dialogue between beauty and mortality lies at the heart of Hirst’s practice, and the present work.
Hirst's art often calls into question notions of belief, particularly our unwavering belief in medicine's ability to heal. Indeed, a number of other significant series, including the Medicine Cabinets and Pill Cabinets, have engaged with this theme, adopting the same tendency towards structural order and patterning as the Spot Paintings. “Art is like medicine–it can heal. Yet I’ve always been amazed at how many people believe in medicine but don’t believe in art, without questioning either” (D. Hirst, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 1997, p. 246).
Damien Hirst is perhaps the best-known British artist working today. In 1988, he made a name for himself by leading the organization of Freeze, an exhibition of student work that would later be considered considered the starting point of the influential Young British Artists or YBAs, a loosely affiliated group of Hirst and peers such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas who would dominate the British art world in the 1990s.
Hirst has continually produced ambitious, compelling, and captivating works ranging from Kaleidoscope Paintings—first made in 2001 by placing thousands of butterfly wings in intricate geometric patterns onto painted canvases—to For the Love of God (2007), a platinum cast of a human skull set with 8,601 diamonds. Hirst’s first major retrospective, The Agony and the Ecstasy, was presented by the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy, in 2004, and he was recognized in 2012 with a major retrospective at Tate Modern in London.
Like much of Hirst’s art, the Spot Paintings evoke various psychological and perceptual dichotomies: they are both calming and unnerving, beautiful and ordinary. “In the spot paintings the grid-like structure creates the beginning of a system. On each painting no two colours are the same. This ends the system; it’s a simple system. No matter how I feel as an artist or a painter, the paintings end up looking happy...I believe painting and all art should ultimately be uplifting for a viewer. I love colour. I feel it inside me. It gives me a buzz” (D. Hirst, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 1997, p. 246).