Who is Damien Hirst?
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965 and grew up in Leeds, England. He moved to London in 1984 and
studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College from 1986 to 1989.
Hirst first came to the public's attention in London in 1988 when, during his second year at university, he
at Goldsmiths College conceived and curated the group exhibition "Freeze", which created a new wave of
British artists who reinvented contemporary art.
In 1995, Hirst was awarded the Turner Prize. Since 1987, Damien Hirst has shown his works in over 100 solo exhibitions worldwide and has been represented in over 300 group exhibitions. In 2012, the Tate Modern in London presented a major retrospective of Hirst's work in conjunction with the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. In April 2017
he presented his most complex project to date, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, in two
Museum spaces in Venice.
Damien Hirst lives and works in London, Devon and Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom.
How does Damien Hirst work?
Throughout his career, Hirst reflected on the complex relationships between beauty, religion, science, life and death. Hirst combines thick brushstrokes and elements of gestural painting, drawing on Impressionism and Pointillism as well as Action Painting.
Since 1991, Hirst has used formaldehyde in many of his best-known works to explore the relationship between art and science. Other iconic series by Hirst include Spot Paintings, a series that began in 1986 and consists of colourful dots that look as if they were painted by a machine, and Spin Paintings, which are known for their energetic bursts of colour and always contain a random element.
Hirst's works are in major collections such as the British Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate, the Stedelijk Museum, the Yale
Centre for British Art, the Broad Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Fondazione Prada and
the Museo Jumex.
"The Weight of Things": HIRST exhibition at the MUCA in Munich
From 26 October 2023 to 24 November 2024, some of Damien Hirst's most iconic works were on display for the first time in Germany in a major survey exhibition at the MUCA.
The exhibition entitled "The Weight of Things showed more than 40 works from 40 years of career
of the artist, some of which have never been seen before.
Skull "For the Love of God"
So was "For the Love of God" (2007), Damien Hirst's famous platinum cast of a human skull set with 8,601 diamonds, on display at MUCA for a limited time until 28 January 2024. The diamond skull embodies Hirst's fascination with diamonds and emphasises the inherent uncertainty of their value. It confronts the competitive nature of the diamond industry and the capitalist society that sustains it.
"I am so happy and excited to have been invited by Christian and Stephanie Utz to present this exhibition, The Weight of Things, in Munich, where I have the opportunity to show many of my earlier works through to my later series such as Treasures from the Wreck
of the Unbelievable. And a huge new outdoor spot painting that will be visible from all over the city. I'm very excited to be working on this exhibition and bringing it all together in such a unique and dynamic space at MUCA." - Damien Hirst
Which Hirst series were on show at the MUCA?
The "Weight of Things" exhibition featured several works from Hirst's most iconic series, including:
- Natural History, here also one of Hirst's famous formaldehyde shark sculptures
- „For the Love of God", skull sculpture set with diamonds
- Spin Paintings, known for energetic bursts of colour and its random element
- Medicine Cabinets
- Treasures from the Wreck of the UnbelievableHirst's most complex work to date, based on a fictional legend about an ancient shipwreck.
- Cherry Blossoms, reinterprets the traditional theme of landscape painting with playful irony
- Spot Paintings, Consisting of coloured dots that look as if they have been painted by a machine
- Butterfly Paintings
