35 PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION Damien Hirst 20 Pills 2004-2005 oil on canvas 60 x 72 in. (152.4 x 182.9 cm) Signed, titled and dated “2004-2005, ’20 Pills,’ Damien Hirst” on the reverse.
Provenance Gagosian Gallery, New York Catalogue Essay They were looking at shiny colors and bright shapes and nice white coats and cleanliness and they were going right—this is going to be my saviour. And it didn’t ring true—it didn’t seem believable. DAMIEN HIRST (Interview conducted by G. Burn, appeared in “Damien Hirst: Pharmacy”, Tate: Online Project, London, ber 3, 2001) The roots of 20 Pills, 2004-2005, extend to Hirst’s first endeavors into Duchampian readymades. Among his earliest forays into medicinal art, Hirst’s artistic appropriations of pillboxes in medicine cabinets exposed society’s collective blind praise of medicine, each cabinet resembling a shrine to a newborn god. The cabinets rely on the sheer potency of their found objects. If “Duchampian readymades have been transposed from the morgue and the operating theatre to the gallery on the basis of the cold cargo of dread and terror that they carry,” Hirst preempts macabre horror in favor of medicinal dependence and existential quandary (G. Burn. “The Hay Smells Difference to the Lovers than to the Horses”, Theories, Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings, Edenbridge, 2000, p. 8). The medicine cabinets eventually culminated in 2000’s The Void, a reflective cabinet with hundreds of larger-than-life pills, each rendered in resin, metal, and plaster. The Void, more aesthetically seductive than the medicine cabinets, provides a sectioned portion as the subject of 20 Pills, 2004-2005. What makes 20 Pills, 2004-2005, so intriguing is not Hirst’s choice of subject (he has regularly dissected the relationship between science and art throughout his career), but the medium in which he chooses to render his subject. Indeed, 20 Pills, 2004-2005, which was produced in conjunction with his 2005 show, “The Elusive Truth”, at Gagosian Gallery, is something of a scientific experiment itself: the piece itself is a painting of a photograph of an artistic model of reality. At first, paint would seem as extraordinarily conservative a medium as possible for Hirst, who regular employs extremely avant-garde materials for his art. But instead of formaldehyde-immersed carcasses or vivisected bronze sculpture, the medium of paint allows sinister subtlety to display his artistic ingenuity. In 20 Pills, we find ourselves three degrees removed from actuality. The central question, however, is whether we are fewer or more than three degrees removed from existence as when we alter our reality with Hirst’s seemingly benign subjects. As science, and medicine in particular, earns the status of spiritual creed in our society, so it reaps the ire of Damien Hirst’s distrust. As in Hirst’s spot paintings, which entice the viewer in their universal appeal of unique colors, 20 Pills, 2004-2005, gives us an experience upon first view that is truly visceral; perhaps not on the level of content, but certainly from the perspective of color scheme—Hirst’s chromatics glow soft and are nearly pastel in their placidity. We see, on the space of four mirrored racks, twenty unique pills, all carefully oriented length-wise across the surface of their reflective surface. As a photograph is the basis for the oil-on-canvas before us, the orientation is a gaze from the above-left so as not to reveal any reflection of the camera. The pills’ chromatic organization is something of a marvel; the powder blues and gentle pinks of the more friendly subjects are offset by the deep amber and saturated reds of their quiet neighbors. The four-way reflectivity of the mirrored shelves conjure four perspectives of each pill. All in all, we are given a nearly thorough view of every pill’s surface, voyeurs to any secrets that the tablets may hold. Though at first glance we would be quick to label the present lot a still-life, its photographic basis alienates any such label. When closely examined, we see the revelations of its subject: blown-up to precisely five-by-six feet, Hirst’s section yields imperfections
35 PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION Damien Hirst 20 Pills 2004-2005 oil on canvas 60 x 72 in. (152.4 x 182.9 cm) Signed, titled and dated “2004-2005, ’20 Pills,’ Damien Hirst” on the reverse.
Provenance Gagosian Gallery, New York Catalogue Essay They were looking at shiny colors and bright shapes and nice white coats and cleanliness and they were going right—this is going to be my saviour. And it didn’t ring true—it didn’t seem believable. DAMIEN HIRST (Interview conducted by G. Burn, appeared in “Damien Hirst: Pharmacy”, Tate: Online Project, London, ber 3, 2001) The roots of 20 Pills, 2004-2005, extend to Hirst’s first endeavors into Duchampian readymades. Among his earliest forays into medicinal art, Hirst’s artistic appropriations of pillboxes in medicine cabinets exposed society’s collective blind praise of medicine, each cabinet resembling a shrine to a newborn god. The cabinets rely on the sheer potency of their found objects. If “Duchampian readymades have been transposed from the morgue and the operating theatre to the gallery on the basis of the cold cargo of dread and terror that they carry,” Hirst preempts macabre horror in favor of medicinal dependence and existential quandary (G. Burn. “The Hay Smells Difference to the Lovers than to the Horses”, Theories, Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings, Edenbridge, 2000, p. 8). The medicine cabinets eventually culminated in 2000’s The Void, a reflective cabinet with hundreds of larger-than-life pills, each rendered in resin, metal, and plaster. The Void, more aesthetically seductive than the medicine cabinets, provides a sectioned portion as the subject of 20 Pills, 2004-2005. What makes 20 Pills, 2004-2005, so intriguing is not Hirst’s choice of subject (he has regularly dissected the relationship between science and art throughout his career), but the medium in which he chooses to render his subject. Indeed, 20 Pills, 2004-2005, which was produced in conjunction with his 2005 show, “The Elusive Truth”, at Gagosian Gallery, is something of a scientific experiment itself: the piece itself is a painting of a photograph of an artistic model of reality. At first, paint would seem as extraordinarily conservative a medium as possible for Hirst, who regular employs extremely avant-garde materials for his art. But instead of formaldehyde-immersed carcasses or vivisected bronze sculpture, the medium of paint allows sinister subtlety to display his artistic ingenuity. In 20 Pills, we find ourselves three degrees removed from actuality. The central question, however, is whether we are fewer or more than three degrees removed from existence as when we alter our reality with Hirst’s seemingly benign subjects. As science, and medicine in particular, earns the status of spiritual creed in our society, so it reaps the ire of Damien Hirst’s distrust. As in Hirst’s spot paintings, which entice the viewer in their universal appeal of unique colors, 20 Pills, 2004-2005, gives us an experience upon first view that is truly visceral; perhaps not on the level of content, but certainly from the perspective of color scheme—Hirst’s chromatics glow soft and are nearly pastel in their placidity. We see, on the space of four mirrored racks, twenty unique pills, all carefully oriented length-wise across the surface of their reflective surface. As a photograph is the basis for the oil-on-canvas before us, the orientation is a gaze from the above-left so as not to reveal any reflection of the camera. The pills’ chromatic organization is something of a marvel; the powder blues and gentle pinks of the more friendly subjects are offset by the deep amber and saturated reds of their quiet neighbors. The four-way reflectivity of the mirrored shelves conjure four perspectives of each pill. All in all, we are given a nearly thorough view of every pill’s surface, voyeurs to any secrets that the tablets may hold. Though at first glance we would be quick to label the present lot a still-life, its photographic basis alienates any such label. When closely examined, we see the revelations of its subject: blown-up to precisely five-by-six feet, Hirst’s section yields imperfections
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
