Gagosian to Publish Hirst Spot Paintings Catalogue Raisonné: There Are 1,400 of Them
The Art Newspaper reports that this spring Gagosian Gallery will publish a catalogue that lists every Damien Hirst spot painting. Read More
The Art Newspaper reports that this spring Gagosian Gallery will publish a catalogue that lists every Damien Hirst spot painting. Read More
This month’s issue of The Believer is devoted to art, and features an interview with Joe Bradley, a poem by Hennessy Youngman and a barnburner of an essay by Rachel Cohen called “Gold, Golden, Gilded, Glittering” that charts the connection between innovations in art and banking over the past seven centuries or so. Read More
Damien Hirst’s “spin-painted” assault rifle led the charity auction yesterday at Phillips de Pury in London, which raised a total of $675,000, according to Bloomberg. The work, titled “Spin AK-47 for Peace One Day,” sold for $89,000, exceeding its high estimate of $57,000. All 24 lots in the auction sold. Read More
For a new London art project, rifles have been decomissioned and customized—getting covered with flowers or pulverized into a fine dust. Bran Symondson, a photographer and former army reservist, came up with the idea for the project, “AKA Peace,” which opened yesterday at London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts, when he noted how policemen in Afghanistan would jazz up their guns with flowers and stickers, kind of like a teenager. With a little help from curator Jake Chapman, he got Damien Hirst to “spin-paint” one of them. Read More
In today’s Guardian, critic Jonathan Jones called Damien Hirst “a national disgrace, a living example that talent is nothing and money is king.” That brutal putdown is only the latest in a long line of attacks from art critics, particularly in the British press, that Mr. Hirst has endured over his long career. In honor of this latest sally, let’s take a look back at some of the provocative opinions—positive and negative—that have been offered about the artist over the years. Read More
Jarvis Cocker has lent a Damien Hirst spin painting to the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield, England in the wake of budget cuts to Museums Sheffield that will force the group to cut 45 of its 107 jobs this year. Read More
“Half of them have slept with each other,” says Michael Craig-Martin, a professor at Goldsmiths, about the Young British Artists (a k a YBAs), a group of students whose work he helped foster, in a new video by TateShots, “Michael Craig-Martin: Educating Damien.” Mr. Craig-Martin should know. He worked closely with the whole horny and artful bunch, which included Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who broke out into the art world in the 1988 exhibition “Freeze,” organized by Mr. Hirst. Read More
Police nab four in Picasso forgery. [The Washington Post]
Painting forger tells the Daily Mail not to overlook the little details: “‘I pride myself on my forensic expertise. I started with extensive research…the correct canvas, correct stretchers…framed in good period antique frames.” [Daily Mail] Read More
The seaside village of Ilfracombe in North Devon, England, may earn a fairly unique tourist attraction in the near future.
Damien Hirst has proposed placing a 65-foot statue of a pregnant woman with a sword facing the water. Tenatively titled Verity, it reportedly already has a nickname: the “belly of the South.” Read More
In this month’s issue of The Believer, writer Sheila Heti visits French artist Sophie Calle for a tête-à-tête during the run of Ms. Calle’s piece, Room, for which, during one weekend last October, the artist outfitted a room at the Lowell Hotel in New York with personal items like a burnt mattress, a red wedding dress and a stuffed cat, and then stopped in from time to time to inhabit it. Commissioned by The French Institute Alliance Française as part of its annual contemporary art festival Crossing the Line, this was the latest in a line of intensely personal works by the artist, who is known for doing things like setting up a bed for a night on the Eiffel Tower and inviting guests to read her bedtime stories (Room with a View, 2002). Read More
