Damien Hirst in Venice invites you to admire the luxurious treasures of the Incredible. Damien Hirst (UK)

There is an opinion that an artist can be either extremely rich or extremely poor. This can be applied to the person that will be discussed in this article. His name is - and he is one of the richest living artists.

According to the Sunday Times, according to their estimates, this artist was the richest in the world in 2010, and his fortune was estimated at 215 million pounds.

The work of Damien Hirst

In contemporary art, this man takes the role of "the face of death." This is partly due to the fact that he uses materials that are not used to being used to create works of art. Among them, it is worth noting the paintings from dead insects, parts of dead animals in formaldehyde, a skull with real teeth, etc.

His works evoke shock, disgust and delight in people at the same time. For this, collectors from all over the world are ready to give a huge amount of money.

The artist was born in 1965 in a city called Bristol. His father was a mechanic and left the family when his son was 12 years old. Damian's mother worked in a consulting office and was an amateur artist.

The future "face of death" in contemporary art led an asocial lifestyle. He was arrested twice for shoplifting. But despite this, the young creator studied at the School of Art in Leeds, and then entered the London College called Goldsmith College.

This institution was somewhat innovative. The difference from others was that other schools simply accepted students who did not have the skills to enter a real college, and Goldsmiths College gathered a lot of talented students and teachers. They had their own program, for which you did not need to be able to draw. Recently, this form of training has only gained popularity.

As a student, he liked to visit the morgue and make sketches there. This place laid the foundation for his future themes of works.

From 1990 to 2000, Damien Hirst had problems with drugs and alcohol. During this time, he managed to commit many different antics while in a state of intoxication.

Artist career ladder

Hirst was interested in the public for the first time at an exhibition called "Freeze", which was held in 1988. At this exhibition, at work given artist noted Charles Saatchi. This man was a famous tycoon, but he was also an avid art lover and a collector of art. The collector purchased two of Hirst's works within a year. After that, Saatchi frequently purchased art from Damien. You can count about 50 works that were bought by this person.

Already in 1991, the aforementioned artist decided to hold his own exhibition, which was called In and Out of Love. He did not stop there and held several more exhibitions, one of which was held in

In the same year, his most famous work was produced, it was called "The physical impossibility of death in the mind of the living." It was created at the expense of Saatchi. The work done by Damien Hirst, the photo of which is a little lower, was a container with a large one that was immersed in formaldehyde.

In the photo it may seem that the shark is rather small in length, but in fact it was 4.3 meters.

Scandals

In 1994, at an exhibition curated by Damien Hirst, there was a scandal with an artist named Mark Bridger. This incident happened because of one of the works called "Strangled from the herd", which is a sheep immersed in formaldehyde.

Mark came to an exhibition where this work of art was being shown and in one motion poured a can of ink into a container and proclaimed the new name of this work - "Black Sheep". Damien Hirst sued him for an act of vandalism. At the trial, Mark tried to explain to the jury that he just wanted to complement Hirst's work, but the court did not understand him and found him guilty. He could not pay the fine, because at that time he was in poor condition, so he was given only 2 years of probation. Some time later, he created his own Black Sheep.

Damien's credits

In 1995, a significant date happened in the life of the artist - he was nominated for the Turner Prize. The work entitled "separated mother and child" served to ensure that Damien Hirst became the laureate of this award. The artist combined 2 containers in this work. In one of them there was a cow in formaldehyde, and in the second a calf.

Last "loud" work

most latest work, which caused a stir, is on which Damien Hirst spent quite a lot of money. The work, the photo of which already shows all its high cost, Damien Hirst has not yet had.

The title of this installation is "For the Love of God". It represents a human skull, which is covered with diamonds. 8601 diamonds were used for this creation. The total size of the stones is 1100 carats. This sculpture is the most expensive of all existing by the artist. Its price is 50 million pounds. After that, he cast a new skull. This time it was the skull of a baby, which was called "For God's sake". The material used was platinum and diamonds.

In 2009, after Damian Hirst held his exhibition "Requiem", which caused a storm of discontent from critics, he announced that he was done with installations and would continue to do ordinary painting again.

Outlook on life

Based on the interview, the artist calls himself a punk. He says he's afraid of death, because real death truly terrible. According to him, it is not death that sells well, but only the fear of death. His views on religion are skeptical.

Gary Tatintsyan Gallery has opened an exhibition of Damien Hirst, one of the most expensive and famous contemporary artists. This is not the first time Hirst has been brought to Russia: before that, there was a retrospective at the Russian Museum, a small exhibition at the Triumph Gallery, and a collection of the artist himself at MAMM. This time visitors will be presented with the most significant works 2008, sold by the artist himself at Sotheby's personal auction in the same year. Buro 24/7 tells why butterflies, colorful circles and pills are so important for understanding Hirst's work.

How Hirst Became an Artist

Damien Hirst can be fully considered the personification of Young British Artists - a generation that is no longer young, but very successful artists whose heyday was in the 1990s. Among them are Tracey Emin with neon inscriptions, Jake and Dinos Chapman with a love for small figures and a dozen other artists.

YBA is united not only by studying at the prestigious Goldsmiths College, but also by the first joint Freeze exhibition, which took place in 1988 in an empty administration building on the London docks. Hirst himself acted as curator - he selected works, ordered a catalog and planned the opening of the exhibition. Freeze caught the attention of Charles Saatchi, an advertising mogul, collector and future patron of Young British Artists. Two years later, Saatchi purchased Hirst's first installation in his collection, A Thousand Years, and also offered him sponsorship for his future creations.

Damien Hirst, 1996. Photo: Catherine McGann/Getty Images

The theme of death, which later became central in Hirst's work, slips already in A Thousand Years. The essence of the installation was a constant cycle: flies appeared from the eggs of the larvae, which crawled to the rotting cow's head and died on the wires of the electronic fly swatter. A year later, Saatchi lent Hearst money to create another work about the cycle of life - the famous shark stuffed in formaldehyde.

"The physical impossibility of death in the mind of the living"

In 1991, Charles Saatchi bought an Australian shark for Hirst for six thousand pounds. Today the shark symbolizes a soap bubble contemporary art. It has become a staple of the press (Sun article headlined "£50,000 Fish No Chips" for example) and is also one of the main themes of economist Don Thompson's book How to Sell a Stuffed Shark for $12 Million: scandalous truth on Contemporary Art and Auction Houses.

Despite the noise, in 2006 the work was bought for eight million dollars by the head of the hedge fund, Steve Cohen. Among interested buyers was Nicolas Serota, director of the Tate Modern, the largest contemporary art museum along with New York's MoMA and Paris' Center Pompidou. Attention to the installation was attracted not only by the list of key names for contemporary art, but also by the time of its existence - 15 years. Over the years, the body of the shark had become rotten, and Hurst had to replace it and pull it on a plastic frame. "The physical impossibility of death in the mind of the living" was the first work in the series " Natural history”- Subsequently, Hirst also placed a sheep and dismembered carcasses of cows in formaldehyde.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

Black Sheep 2007

Love's Paradox (Surrender or Autonomy, Separateness as a Precondition for Connection.), 2007

The Tranquility of Solitude (for George Dyer), 2006

Rotations and kaleidoscopes

Hirst's work can be divided into several genres. In addition to the aforementioned aquariums with formaldehyde, “rotations” and “spots” are distinguished - the latter are performed by the artist’s assistants in his studio. Butterflies continue the theme of life and death. Here is a kaleidoscope like a stained-glass window in a Gothic cathedral, and a grandiose installation “To fall in love or stop loving” - rooms completely filled with these insects. For the sake of creating the latter, Hirst sacrificed about nine thousand butterflies: 400 new insects were brought daily to the Tate Gallery, where the retrospective was held, to replace the dead.

The retrospective became the most visited in the history of the museum: in five months it was seen by almost half a million spectators. Next to the theme of life and death, there is logically a "pharmacy" - when looking at the dotted paintings of the artist, associations arise precisely with medicines. In 1997, Damien Hirst opened the Apteka restaurant. It closed in 2003, and the sale of decor and interior items at auction brought in an astounding $11.1 million. Hirst also developed the theme of medical preparations in a more visual way - a separate series of the artist is devoted to cabinets with manually laid out pills. The most financially successful work was "Spring Lullaby" - a rack with pills brought the artist $ 19 million.

Damien Hirst, Untitled, 1992; In Search of Nirvana, 2007 (installation fragment)

"For the Love of God"

Another famous work Hirst (and also expensive in every sense) - a skull studded with more than eight thousand diamonds. The work got its name from the First Epistle of John - "For this is the love of God." This again refers us to the theme of the frailty of life, the inevitability of death and reasoning about the essence of being. In the forehead of the skull is a diamond worth four million pounds. The production itself cost Hirst 12 million, and the price for the work was in the end about 50 million pounds (about $ 100 million). The skull was displayed at the Amsterdam state museum, and then sold to a group of investors through the White Cube gallery of Jay Jopling, another major dealer who collaborated with Hurst.

Damien Hirst, "For this is the love of God", 2007

Records, fakes and the phenomenon of fame

Although Hirst does not set absolute records, among living artists, he is considered one of the most expensive. The rise in prices for his work peaked at the end of the 2000s with the sale of a shark, a skull and other works. Sotheby's auction at the height of the 2008 economic crisis can also be called a separate episode: it brought him 111 million pounds, which is 10 times more than the previous record - a similar auction by Picasso in 1993. The most expensive lot was the Golden Calf - the carcass of a bull in formalin, sold for 10.3 million pounds.

The history of the formation of Hirst is an example of an ideal scenario for any contemporary artist in which competent marketing played almost a key role. Even ridiculous stories like the gallery cleaner Eyestorm, who put an artist's installation in a trash bag, or a Florida pastor convicted of trying to sell Hirst fakes in 2014, look unintelligible against the backdrop of the artist's high-profile antics. The decline in interest in Hirst has become most evident in the last five years after another exhibition at the White Cube.- the pressure of the critics became more tangible, Hirst's ingenuity no longer amazed the jaded public, and the auction records passed to other players - Richter, Koons and Kapoor. One way or another, Hirst's halo of fame continues to extend to his old works, which today can be viewed in the Tatintsian Gallery. Ahead of Hirst and new projects - on the eve of the Venice Biennale, the artist opens a large exhibition at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. According to a press release, they are "the fruit of a decade of work" - it is likely that everyone will talk about Damien Hirst again.

Damien Stephen Hirst Damien Hirst; June 7, 1965, Bristol, UK) - English artist, entrepreneur, art collector, and the most celebrated figure of the Young British Artists, who have dominated the art scene since the 1990s.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST

Damien Hirst was born in Bristol and grew up in Leeds. His father was a mechanic and car salesman who left the family when Damien was 12 years old. His mother, Mary, was an amateur artist. She quickly lost control of her son, who was arrested twice for shoplifting.

Damien first studied at art school in Leeds, then, after two years working on construction sites in London, he tried to enter Central St Martin's College of Art and Design and some college in Wales. Eventually, he was accepted into Goldsmiths College (1986-1989). In the 1980s, Goldsmith College was considered innovative: unlike other schools that collected students who failed to get into a real college, Goldsmith School attracted many talented students and resourceful teachers. Goldsmith introduced an innovative program that did not require students to draw or paint. Over the past 30 years, this model of education has become widespread throughout the world.

As a student at the school, Hurst regularly visited the mortuary. Later, he will notice that many themes of his works originate there.

In July 1988, Hirst curated the now-famous Freeze exhibition in the empty Port of London Authority building on the London Docks; the exhibition featured the work of 17 students of the school and his own creation - a composition of cardboard boxes, painted with paint latex paints. The Freeze exhibition itself was also the fruit of Hirst's work. He himself selected the works, ordered the catalog and planned the opening ceremony.

Freeze has become a starting point for several YBA artists; in addition, the well-known collector and patron of the arts, Charles Saatchi, drew attention to Hirst. Hearst graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1989.

In 1990, together with friend Karl Friedman, he organized another exhibition, Gamble, in a hangar in the empty building of the Bermondsey factory. This exhibition was visited by Saatchi: Friedman recalls how he stood with open mouth in front of Hirst's installation called A Thousand Years - a visual demonstration of life and death. Saatchi purchased this creation and offered Hirst money to create future works.

Thus, with the money of Saatchi, in 1991, the “Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living” was created, which is an aquarium with a tiger shark, the length of which reached 4.3 meters. The work cost Saatchi £50,000. The shark was caught by an authorized fisherman in Australia and was valued at £6,000. As a result, Hirst was nominated for the Turner Prize, which was awarded to Greenville Davey. The shark itself was sold in December 2004 to collector Steve Cohen for $12m (£6.5m).

Hirst's first international recognition came to the artist in 1993 at the Venice Biennale. His work "Separated mother and child" was the parts of a cow and a calf placed in separate aquariums with formaldehyde. In 1997, the artist's autobiography "I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now" was published.

Hirst's latest project, which made a lot of noise, is an image of a human skull in life size; the skull itself is copied from that of a European about 35 years of age who died sometime between 1720 and 1910; real teeth in the skull. The creation is encrusted with 8601 industrial diamonds with a total weight of 1100 carats; they cover it completely, like a pavement. In the center of the forehead of the skull is a large 52.4 carat standard brilliant cut pale pink diamond.

The sculpture is called For the Love of the Lord and is the most expensive sculpture by a living artist - £50 million.

CREATION

Death - central theme in his works.

The artist's most famous series is Natural History: dead animals (including a shark, a sheep and a cow) in formaldehyde. Signature work - "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (eng. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living): a tiger shark in an aquarium with formaldehyde. this work became a symbol graphic work British art of the 1990s and a symbol of Britart worldwide.

Unlike sculptures and installations, which practically do not deviate from the theme of death, Damien Hirst's painting at first glance looks cheerful, elegant and life-affirming. The main painting series of the artist are:

"Spots"- Spot paintings (1988 - before today) is a geometric abstraction of colored circles, usually of the same size, not repeating in color and arranged in a lattice. Some jobs do not follow these rules. The scientific names of various toxic, narcotic or stimulating substances are taken as names for most of the works in this series: Aprotinin, Butyrophenone, Ceftriaxone, Diamorphine, Ergocalciferol, Minoxidil, Oxalacetic Acid, Vitamin C", "Zomepirac" and the like.

"Rotations"- Spin paintings (1992 - until today) - painting in the genre of abstract expressionism. In the production of this series, the artist or his assistants pour or drip paint onto a rotating canvas.

"Butterflies"- Butterfly Color Paintings (1994-2008) - abstract assemblage. The paintings are created by gluing dead butterflies onto freshly painted canvas (no glue is used, the butterflies stick to the uncured paint themselves). At the same time, the canvas is evenly painted over with one color, and the butterflies used have a complex, bright color.

"Kaleidoscopes"- Kaleidoscope Paintings (2001-2008) - here, using butterflies stuck close to each other, the artist creates symmetrical patterns similar to kaleidoscope patterns.

It's Great to Be Alive, 2002

Despite the fact that museums sometimes decorate their children's corners with paintings with Damien Hirst butterflies, butterflies in the artist's work quite definitely play the role of symbols of death.

Butterflies are one of the central objects for expressing Hirst's work, he uses them in all possible forms: depiction in paintings, photographs, installations. So he used for one of his installations “Fall in love and out of love” (In and Out of Love), held at the Tate Modern from April to September 2012 in London, 9,000 live butterflies, which gradually died during this event. After this incident, representatives charitable foundation Animal welfare RSPCA subjected the artist to harsh criticism.

In September 2008, Hirst sold the complete Beautiful Inside My Head Forever at Sotheby's for £111 million ($198 million), breaking the record for a single-artist auction.

The Sunday Times estimates that Hirst is the richest living artist in the world - in 2010 his net worth was estimated at £215 million. At the beginning of his career path Damien worked closely with renowned art collector Charles Saatchi, but growing differences led to a split in 2003.

In 2011, Hirst designed the album cover musical group Red Hot Chili Peppers "I'm with you".

In 2007, For the Love of the Lord (a platinum skull encrusted with diamonds) was sold through the White Cube Gallery to a group of investors for a record $100 million for living artists. investors "more than 70% of the assets belong to Hurst himself and his associates. So this work was sold by no more than a third.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Tomkins K. "Biographies of Artists". - M.: V-A-C press, 2013

When writing this article, materials from such sites were used:en.wikipedia.org ,

If you find any inaccuracies or wish to supplement this article, please send us information to the email address [email protected] site, we and our readers will be very grateful to you.

It was he who came up with the idea of ​​encrusting human skulls with diamonds and making art objects from the corpses of cows. Damien Hirst(Damien Hirst) is a British artist and collector who first came to prominence in the late 1980s. Member of the Young British Artists group, considered the most dear artist in the world and the richest in the UK according to The Sunday Times (2010). His works are included in the collections of many museums and galleries: Tate, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, Central Ulrecht Museum, etc. Damien Hirst was born on June 7, 1965 in Bristol, UK. Much of his childhood was spent in Leeds. After the divorce of his parents, when Damien was 12 years old, he began to lead more free image life and was arrested twice for petty theft. However, Hirst was fond of drawing since childhood and graduated from art college in Leeds, and later continued his studies at Goldsmiths College, London University (1986-1989). Some of his drawings were made in the mortuary, the theme of death subsequently became the main one in the artist's work. Damien Hirst is in a civil marriage with designer Maya Norman, the couple has three sons. Most Hirst spends time with his family at his home in Devon in the north of England. Dream, 2008 Anthem, 2000 In 1988, Damien Hirst organized an exhibition of Goldsmith students (Richard and Simon Patterson, Sarah Lucas, Fiona Ray, Angus Fairhurst and others, later they began to be called "Young British Artists") Freeze, which attracted public attention. Here, artists and especially Hirst were noticed by the famous collector Charles Saatchi. Lost love, 2000 In 1990, Damien Hirst took part in the exhibitions Modern Medicine and Gambler. He presented to them his work "A Thousand Years": a glass container with a cow's head covered with cadaverous flies, this work was bought by Saatchi. Since that time, Damien and the collector began to work closely together until 2003. “I am going to die and I want to live forever. I cannot escape death, and I cannot get rid of the desire to live. I want to at least catch a glimpse of what it is like to die.” In 1991, Hirst's first solo exhibition in London, In and Out of Love, was held, and in 1992, the exhibition "Young British Artists" at the Saatchi Gallery, which presented Hirst's work "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living": a tiger shark in formaldehyde. This work at the same time brought the artist fame even among those who are far from art, and a nomination for the Turner Prize. In 1993, Hirst took part in the Venice Biennale with the work Separated Mother and Child, and a year later he curated the exhibition Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away, where he presented his composition Lost Sheep (a dead sheep in formaldehyde), which was renamed "Black Sheep" when the artist poured ink into the aquarium. Damien Hirst received the Turner Prize in 1995. At the same time, the artist presented the installation Two Fucking and Two Watching, which is a decomposing cow and a bull. In subsequent years, Hirst exhibitions were held in London, Seoul, Salzburg. In 1997, Hirst's autobiographical book, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, was published. In 2000, the work “Hymn”, shown at the Art Noise exhibition, was acquired by Saatchi, the sculpture was an anatomical model human body over six meters high. In the same year, the exhibition "Damien Hirst: Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings" was held, which was visited by about 100 thousand people, all of Hirst's sculptures were sold. Self-portrait: "Kill yourself, Damien" In 2004, one of the most famous works Hirst - "The physical impossibility of death in the mind of the living" - Saatchi sold to another collector, Steve Cohen. Its cost was 12 million dollars. "It's very easy to say, 'Well, even I could do that.' The thing is, I did it. In 2007, Damien Hirst presented the work “For the love of God - a human skull covered with platinum and studded with diamonds, only teeth are natural. It was bought by a group of shareholders (including Hirst himself) for 50 million pounds (or $ 100 million), while the artist himself spent 14 million pounds on its creation. Thus, “For the Love of God” is the most expensive work of art by a living artist. "Investment banker in formaldehyde" Hirst is also engaged in painting, some of his most famous works are the triptychs "Meaningless", made in the manner of Francis Bacon (some of them were sold before the opening of the exhibition in 2009), the Spots series (multi-colored dots on white background, reminiscent of pop art), Spins (concentric circles), Butterflies (canvases using butterfly wings).
Damien Hirst also acts as a designer: in 2009, he used his painting "Beautiful, Father Time, Hypnotic, Exploding Vortex, The Hours Painting" to design the cover of the album "See the Light" by the British bands The Hours, and in 2011 came up with the cover for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm with You. He has also collaborated with Levi's, ICA and Supreme and has designed covers for magazines (including Pop, Tar and Garage). Hirst collector owns a collection of paintings by Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Tracey Emin. Cover of Tar Magazine, spring-summer 2009 (designed by Damien Hirst, modeled by Kate Moss) Cover of Garage Magazine FW 2011/2012 (photo by Hedi Slimane, art by Damien Hirst, model Lily Donaldson) Cover of Pop Magazine FW 2009/2010 (photo by Jamie Morgan, art by Damien Hirst, model Tavi Gevinson) Red Hot Chili Peppers "I'm with You" album cover (2011) Damien clothing Damien Hirst X Supreme skateboard series, 2011 Works* In and Out of Love (1991), installation. * The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), tiger shark in formalin tank. It was one of the entries nominated for the Turner Prize. * Pharmacy] (1992), life-size reproduction of a pharmacy. * Away from the Flock (1994), dead sheep in formaldehyde. * Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything (1996) installation.
* Mother and Child Divided * "For the Love of God", (2007) D. Hirst records * In 2007, "For the Love of God" (platinum skull encrusted with diamonds) was sold through the "White Cube" gallery to a group of investors for a record $100 million for living artists.

Damien Hirst(Eng. Damien Hirst, b. June 7, 1965) is a contemporary English artist. One of the most prominent members of the Young British Artists group. 1995 Turner Prize winner. 2010 estimates - richest artist in the world.

Biography and creativity

Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol (England). Grew up in Leeds. His father left the family when Hearst was 12 years old, and his mother was unable to control her son. In his youth, he was arrested twice for shoplifting.

He studied at the art school in Leeds and then (after a two-year pause) at Goldsmith College (1986-1989), which at that time was considered innovative and offered an experimental curriculum, which attracted many talented students and teachers there. At this time, he was very fond of the work of Francis Bacon, which was reflected in his future works. Even before graduation, in July 1988 he curated the exhibition Freeze where, among others, his own installations were presented. It should be noted that this exhibition itself was in many ways a project of the 23-year-old Hirst and marked the beginning of both his own career and the careers of a number of other artists, many of whom were also Goldsmith alumni. Here Hirst was first noticed by the millionaire and art collector Charles Saatchi, who was greatly impressed by the artist's work. A year later, at the second exhibition of Hirst, he bought his work "A Thousand Years" and offered financial assistance in creating future work.

installation "A thousand years" was a kind of system illustrating such global processes as life and death. The theme of death - Hirst's key theme - already occupies a dominant position in this work. The installation consisted of a container of fly eggs, a rotting cow's head, and an electric fly swatter. The eggs hatched into larvae, crawled to the food (cow's head), turned into flies and died when they came into contact with the fly swatter. Over time, the installation changed - the head became smaller, and there were more and more corpses of flies, and the viewer, coming to the exhibition again, saw the entire process described above in dynamics, observing not only the life path of the flies, but also the result of this process.

With money from Saatchi, Hirst created a work called "The physical impossibility of death in the mind of the living". This work was a dead four-meter shark in formaldehyde. She laid the foundation for a number of similar installations, one of which - "Separated mother and child"(literally from English. “Mother and child. Divided») - was presented at the Venice Biennale and brought Hirst international fame. Here the viewer sees creatures “frozen in death”, something frightening and repulsive, something that is no longer alive, but still retains its easily recognizable appearance. So, for example, in front of the conditional viewer of the installation “Physical Impossibility…” there is no shark, it has already died and only its shell remains. But the “dead” is perceived by the viewer only as “inanimate”. He sees the "former living", interpreting the new object through the prism of what it once was, and not guided by what it is now.

The theme of death, which sometimes turns into the theme of the transience of life, runs like a red thread through all the work of Damien Hirst. In 2007 he creates a work called "For the love of the Lord!", which is sometimes called « diamond skull Damien Hirst" and who became known as most expensive piece of art living author. This work itself is a copy of the skull of a European 35 years old, made of platinum and fully encrusted with diamonds. In the center of the forehead of the skull is a pink diamond. The creation of this work cost Hirst 14 million pounds.

Despite the conceptual foundations of Hirst's works, it is difficult to deny the deliberately scandalous nature of many of the artist's works. Following dead animals in formaldehyde and the most expensive work of art in the world, we should mention the installation "In and Out of Love" or in this case "Inside and Outside Love"). Dolls were attached to canvases on the walls, from which butterflies appeared. Entering the room, the spectators found themselves among these insects that flew around them, landing both on the spectators themselves and on fruit containers placed in the same room. The exhibition was held at the Tate Modern gallery and lasted 5 months. During this time, it has attracted more than 460,000 visitors and has become the most visited personal exhibition in the history of the gallery. Later it was reported that 9,000 butterflies died during the exhibition and this caused protests from a number of environmental organizations.

Damien Hirst's painting can be classified as geometric abstract art (example: series Spot paintings) and (example: series Spin paintings)). The "Spots" series consists of paintings depicting circles of the same size but different colors (the color never repeats) arranged in a lattice pattern. The Rotations series consists of paintings that were created by pouring paint onto a rotating canvas. Hirst is also the author of a number of paintings that bring us back to the theme of butterflies: the Butterfly Color Paintings series consists of works where dead butterflies are attached to the paint that has not yet dried, which become the basis of the composition.