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Tracklisting & More Information
CONDITION
Mint apart from the Green Graphics poster which has a minor dink which will be hardly visible when framed.
BACKGROUND
This superb set of LONG SOLD OUT set each measure 23 inches x 33 inches and published by the White Cube.
These offset lithographs do appear individually but have become increasingly difficult to find as a complete set.
Obtained from a reputable art gallery who purchased from the White Cube.
ARTIST BACKGROUND
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965. He grew up in Leeds with his mother, Mary Brennan, and his stepfather. He took a foundation course at Leeds School of Art before applying for college. He was rejected by St. Martin's but moved to London in 1986 when he was accepted onto the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths College, graduating in 1989. While still a student in 1988, Damien conceived, organised and promoted "Freeze", an exhibition held in a Docklands warehouse. The show featured several of Damien's pieces, and work by 16 of his fellow Goldsmith's' students.
This amazingly successful self-promoted exhibition is widely believed to have been the starting point for the "Young British Artists" movement. After seeing Damien's work at the show, Charles Saatchi (ex Thatcher ad-man), began to collect his work and exhibited it in the first "Charles Saatchi's Young British Artists" show. In 1990, Saatchi bought Damien's A Thousand Years. Since then, he has produced a body of work that, admired from the start by collectors and curators, has also proved extraordinarily provocative. In 1992, he commissioned the piece The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for about US$32,000. He has organised a succession of exhibitions that have helped to define a generation.
Damien's generation is one completely different from previous generations of artist. The Young British Artists are characterised by their independence, their entrepreneurial spirit, and their media savvy. Most promote their own shows, and are financed privately instead of by the Department of National Heritage establishment. This way, they needn't worry about being "discovered" by the conservative governmental agencies, and instead tend to draw in private patrons, like Saatchi.
The central, though not exclusive theme of Hirst's work has been an exploration of mortality, a traditional subject that Hirst has updated and extended with wit, verve, originality and force. He is best known for a series of works (The Natural History series) in which dead animals are presented as memento mori in forms ironically appropriated from the museum of natural history rather than of art. Their titles suggest a range of readings and reveal the thoughtfulness of his approach. The artwork itself has a visual power that is virtually unmatched by any possible description of it. One cannot really hope to understand it, or even visualise it without experiencing it firsthand. This, many people believe, is the reason Damien was short listed for the Turner Prize in 1992.
Even his own supporters do not always acclaim his work. The popularity of Hirst's unique brand of artistic statement tends to cycle in phases of favour and disdain. In April 1993, Hirst's God sold at the highest price of any of his pieces to date: 188,500 pounds. In October 1993, however, his exhibit Alone Yet Together, which consisted of a cabinet holding 100 fish suspended in small tanks of formaldehyde, was set to auction for nearly 150,000 pounds. The bidding closed at only 85,000, and failed to sell. His piece entitled Loss of Memory is Worse Than Death (a steel cage encasing several vitrines which contained a surgical mask, gloves, and a syringe) also failed to sell, closing at 55,000 pounds (less than half of the maximum expected bid).
Damien blames this occasional lack of success not on the public, but on the press. He says that the media convinces the public to believe the art critics' erroneous assumptions about art, so the public accepts these opinions without ever actually viewing the art. In this manner, the public is alienated from an art world that they could find very enjoyable if they gave it a fair chance. Many people who agree with this idea also believe that the art critics themselves are influenced in their opinions by the media. They go in to review a work of art with a preconceived opinion, and do not allow the art to affect them the way it should. By distancing themselves from the art, they are cheating themselves of the full experience.
ARTWORK
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