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paintings he made before travelling to London The curators conceived telling juxtapo - in 1760; here the influence of contemporary sitions and sightlines within and between French art, in particular the work of François galleries, but the transition between the Indian Boucher, is palpable. This painting, a still life section and the last, entitled ‘Revolution, of the same year (no.6), and a painting entitled Reaction and Retirement’, was somewhat Time clipping the wings of Love, dated 1761 abrupt, as if the curators literally ran out of (no.9), that is, after his arrival in London, form space. The Sackler Galleries can hardly be a visual bridge to the next sections on Zoffany described as generous for the staging of an and the London stage and his association with exhibition of this scale and complexity, the Academy. Indeed, the curators organised although the close nature of the hang, along the gallery hang so that visitors could view with the dark wall colours and dramatic spot these earlier paintings in conjunction with lighting, added to the intensity of the visitor’s examples of his theatrical compositions in the experience. But the lack of space dedicated to next gallery, allowing the contrasting style and the final section may explain why The death of subject of works such as David Garrick and Mrs Captain Cook (c.1798; no.107) was not shown Cibber as Jaffier and Belvidera in ‘Venice Preserv’d’ in London, which was a pity because Zoffany (1762; no.19) to be seen and understood. Zof- was Joseph Banks’s original choice as artist to fany was primarily a portrait painter and most accompany Cook’s second voyage to the of the exhibition was given over to his con- South Seas (in the event, Zoffany’s friend versation pieces and full-length society por- William Hodges made the voyage) and traits. The translation of Zoffany’s style, from because the painting’s grouping with two 35. The physical impossibility of death in the mind of small to large format, brings into sharp focus equally macabre revolutionary subjects, Plun- someone living, by Damien Hirst. 1991. Glass, painted his continental training and artistic develop- dering the king’s cellar at Paris (exh. RA1794; steel, silicone, shark and formaldehyde, 217 by 542 ment in Rome. Indeed, the tautness of these no.104) and A scene in the Champs de Mars, cel- by 180 cm. (Private collection; exh. Tate Modern, London). compositions with blocks of bold, contrasting ebrating over the bodies of the Swiss soldiers (c.1794; colours, brings him closer to the grand-tour no.106), was, to my mind, the unexpected portraiture of Pompeo Batoni than to the freer coup de théâtre of the display at New Haven. by the recently opened semi-private Saatchi handling and subtle tones of, for example, Such practicalities often influence exhibitions Gallery in north London, where monumental Thomas Gainsborough. However, Zoffany’s as they adapt to different venues, however, and works by Minimalist artists such as Donald maturity and range were underlined by the should in no sense overshadow the undoubted Judd and Richard Serra were presented in a works from his stay in India, from the austere achievement of the curators in realising such a renovated industrial space, Hirst masterminded portrait of the Governor General, Warren thoughtful and thought-provoking exhibition. Freeze. The three-part group show, compris- Hastings (no.80), and the chaotic Colonel ing mostly the work of his fellow students, Mordaunt’s cockfight (no.86) to his Nagaphon 1 M. Webster: exh. cat. Johan Zoffany, 1733–1810, proved pivotal in that it both launched his Ghut, Upper India (no.95), where the artist London (National Portrait Gallery) 1976; and idem: generation to critical acclaim, and identified reimagines the Mughal landscape through the Johan Zoffany, New Haven and London 2011, reviewed Hirst as the most precocious and ambitious work of Joseph Wright of Derby and others. by Desmond Shawe-Taylor in this Magazine, 154 among his peers. Although it was located in a (2012), pp.351–52. 2 Catalogue: Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed. semi-derelict warehouse in the then far from Edited by Martin Postle. 320 pp. incl. 225 col. + 5 chic south London, he ensured that leading b. & w. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and figures from the art world would attend by London, 2011), £40 (HB). ISBN 978–0–300–17604–9. dint of a sophisticated press campaign and the provision of a fleet of taxis to expedite their travel from central London. Seeing Serra’s work at Saatchi’s Boundary Road gallery had been formative for Hirst on several levels. ‘It Damien Hirst was one of those big moments in my life, when the power of art really hits home’, he London remarked recently, adding in a telling aside: ‘The work goes from something conceptual by LYNNE COOKE to something in the real world, like a life threatening object, in the blink of an eye’.2 SPANNING SOME TWENTY-FIVE years, the Key among subsequent chapters in the nar- mid-career survey of Damien Hirst’s work at rative of Hirst’s preoccupation with present - Tate Modern, London (to 9th September), ation and marketing was Pharmacy, a bar and offers the first opportunity in Britain to gauge restaurant he launched (with three partners) in the significance of its most celebrated con- the later 1990s. Located in Notting Hill Gate, temporary artist.1 What is at stake is not, how- it served inter alia as a high-visibility watering ever, just the work that is on view. Hirst’s hole for friends and associates. Several years practice encompasses more than a plethora later, capitalising on the direct access that of diverse artefacts. From his debut in 1988 auction houses purportedly offer to buyers he has been involved in the staging of exhi - who are intimidated or otherwise wary of bitions, the creation of an artistic brand and the gallery system, Hirst bypassed his dealers the fabrication of a public persona. and sold an extensive body of new work Hirst curated his first show in 1988, while direct from the studio. A two-part auction at still an undergraduate at Goldsmiths College Sotheby’s, London, on 15th and 16th Sep- of Art in London. His conviction that the art tember 2008, this high-profile event garnered world as it then existed could not accom- the artist an astonishing £111 million in sales 34. Thomas King as Touchstone in ‘As You Like It’, by modate his generation led to the conclusion revenue. Fortuitously, it took place on the Johan Zoffany. 1780. Canvas, 91 by 55.5 cm. (Garrick that he and his colleagues would have to rein- same day that Lehmann Brothers, the stalwart Club, London; exh. Royal Academy of Arts, London). vent it, tailoring it to their own ends. Inspired of the American financial system, collapsed,

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bankrupt. As the financial crisis spread globally, for a signature mode that would permit end- plated, sometimes in stainless steel vitrines, a small sector of the contemporary art world less, infinitely repeatable variants. In addition, wreathed in a patina of Gucci and Swarovski. continued to prove itself largely immune: cer- that gallery includes several works referencing According to Hirst, having money ensures tain kinds of art seem able to triumph over kitchenware in which his characteristic quick ‘greater control’ – presumably over both the life’s devastating forces. Hirst’s savvy staging take – here, on the leading sculptors of production and dissemination of his work. of this unprecedented sale coupled with its the moment, Tony Cragg and Julian Opie – is Where artists in previous decades sought to serendipitous timing demonstrates his keen manifest. In an interview with the American control the distribution and reception of their grasp of the infrastructure and mechanisms of artist Richard Prince published years later, works in order to extricate themselves as far as the art world, and his almost uncanny skill in Hirst confirmed that he is not interested in possible from what they perceived as problem- shaping it to his own ends. originality and that he constantly steals from atic aspects of the commercial, mainstream art Tellingly, when planning this retrospective other artists. In the best of his works, such world, Hirst, by contrast, has employed those at Tate Modern, Hirst handed over curatorial as the series of early medicine cabinets mechanisms to embed himself more securely control in large part to Ann Gallagher, Head (Fig.36), this has proved a productive strategy. at its centre. of Collections (British Art) at Tate, thereby The cabinets, their shelves brimming with Since the later 1990s Hirst’s audience has ensuring that all the appurtenances of a high- pharmacological offerings, deftly marry Con- ballooned to include a coterie of mega-rich ly professional presentation would be clearly ceptual and Minimalist methodologies, a the- collectors that now stretches across a North in place. Gallagher’s checklist of some seven- matics grounded in pathology and healing, American/Western European axis to include ty works judiciously winnows the selection and a metaphysics probing immortality. the Middle East, former Soviet states, and to omit many less successful recent works, These impressive early works provide a high beyond. Its global reach operates at yet other such as an extensive series of paintings from benchmark against which the more recent levels, with equal efficacy, courtesy of the c.2006–08 that bear the heavy imprint of production must be judged. By the later 1990s extensive range of artefacts, including T- Francis Bacon. She focuses instead on certain Hirst, who had joined the Gagosian Gallery in shirts, coffee mugs, posters and editioned thematic and formal continuities, bodies of 1996, had considerable resources at his behest. prints, available to online shoppers on Hirst’s work that begin early in Hirst’s career: med- Whereas, formerly, securing of the necessary website. Presumably, it is his effective mining icine cabinets; animals in formaldehyde (two funds for his more ambitious projects like the of both ends of that financial spectrum that has schools of fish, a white lamb, a shark, and shark in The physical impossibility of death in the made Hirst the highest grossing artist since a cow and calf – the notoriously ‘divided’ mind of someone living (1991; Fig.35) had taken Picasso. One of the last galleries in the exhibi- mother and child) and installation works in him years, now he could materialise his most tion, the room which – chronologically and which the life cycles of insects (flies and immediate thoughts. That the benefits of afflu- conceptually – should have been devoted to butterflies) are resumed. Examples from the ence may be double-edged is suggested by the diamond skull, For the love of God (2007; series of medicine cabinets that comprised recent sculptures, comprised of thousands of Fig.37), which cost some £14 million to Hirst’s memorable degree show at Goldsmiths meticulously hand-painted pills or carefully fabricate, has been transformed into a store in 1989 are presented here together with his crafted diamonds, shown sometimes in gold- to merchandise these wares. Although the breakthrough show, In and out of love, in 1991. Staged under his own auspices, this haunting 36. New York 1989, show occupied a small shop and basement by Damien Hirst. near to Bond Street in London’s West End, 1989. Glass, faced not far from the prestigious Anthony D’Offay particleboard, beech, pine, ramin, plastic, Gallery where Hirst was then working part aluminium and time as a stockboy. Butterflies hatched from pharmaceutical pupae embedded in a group of blank canvases packaging, 137.2 flourished, as they fed on the sugars in fruit by 101.6 by 22.9 cm. placed in bowls on tables, then died. This (Private collection; pathos-ridden mise-en-scène presaged Hirst’s exh. Tate Modern, abiding preoccupation with the fragility of London). existence, and thus with the immutable pres- ence of death. Art and science, love and reli- gion were henceforth to provide the lenses through which he constructed his world. Gallagher’s installation is nothing short of brilliant. Never have Tate Modern’s galleries better served an exhibition. Centred on a spacious open core, they encourage viewers to circulate between works, old and recent, drawing threads from the many reprises of Hirst’s key series. Yet often so crowded is the show that impromptu queues form near the entrance to the butterfly breeding room and adjacent to the severed cow and her progeny. The experience of actually viewing the show is consequently infected with an anticipatory excitement and sense of spectacle. The small gallery that serves as a prologue to the exhibi- tion proper contains, together with his mod- est contribution to Freeze (a relief sculpture comprising small, brightly coloured boxes), the first of his spot paintings. It is evidence of the fledgling artist’s desire to be a painter, his demotic convictions (that the work be readily accessible to a wide audience) and his search

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way, and to the degree, that contemporary Photography in London art, the mass media and popular culture have become fused in public consciousness. London Among the implications of this sea-change is an urgent question which Hirst’s show by ANNE BLOOD highlights: how can contemporary art be at once popular and hold the high ground? By extension, it also questions how institutions IN MAY THE Photographers’ Gallery re- whose function has long been to present such opened to the public after a major renovation work will be able to negotiate between the and extension of its new home on Ramillies genuinely popular and the populist, with its Street. Continuing its long tradition of show- false claims to broad social relevance.6 The arc ing both established and emerging photo - of Hirst’s development follows an unbroken graphers, the new exhibition spaces were trajectory from the most rigorous conceptual inaugurated by shows devoted to the Raqs art, imbibed during his years as a student at Media Collective, based in New Delhi, and Goldsmiths in the mid-1980s, to immersion in works by the Canadian photographer Edward idioms ubiquitous on today’s high street, Burtynsky (both to 1st July). The two new commonplace religious symbolism alongside works by the Raqs Media Collective – a video horror-movie kitsch. What is significant is and a sculpture installation respectively – both that this evolution has not undermined his push the boundaries of the conventional def - 37. For the love of God, by Damien Hirst. 2007. occupancy of the inner sanctum that is home inition of photography as a medium. The Platinum, diamonds and human teeth, 17.1 by to the most esteemed of post-War artists, most prominent piece, An afternoon unregistered 12.9 by 19.1 cm. (Private collection; exh. Tate among whom are his mentors, Bacon and on the Richter scale (2011; Fig.40), is a silent, Modern, London). Serra.7 To take Hirst whole – that is, to looped video projection in which a single engage with the full extent of his practice – archival image is manipulated through several shop is an integral part of the exhibition, and is to become aware how uncomfortably almost imperceptible alterations – clothes clearly distinct from the Tate’s own franchise fraught are the professional roles that we, his change colour, a hand twitches and a fan starts outside the exhibition proper, it is down- insider audience, are required to perform in to move before the image finally fades away. played within the institutional narrative.3 Its what is becoming an increasingly toxic climate The original photograph in the video was presence, nonetheless, is symptomatic of the prioritising ‘entertainment’. Perhaps it is no taken by the British photographer James terms in which his vast audience has been coincidence that the foremost British artists of Waterhouse and depicts the interior of a sur- constructed and sustained. Hirst’s generation – Tacita Dean, Douglas veyor’s office in Calcutta in which several On leaving the shop the visitor turns back Gordon and Steve McQueen – all live and men sit diligently at work, hunched over their towards the retrospective’s final galleries. The work abroad. desks. In many ways it is a fitting first choice penultimate room contains Black sun (2004), for the Photographers’ Gallery at their new 1 one of the few really major works of recent Catalogue: Damien Hirst. Edited and with an intro- venue as it both engages directly with the years. Monumentally scaled, this lugubrious duction by Ann Gallagher, with contributions by Brian history of the medium and continues the Dillon, Michael Craig-Martin, Nicholas Serota, Michael ‘painting’ comprises what appear to be juicy Bracewell, Thomas Crow and Andrew Wilson. 237 pp. championing of experiment. clumps of dead flies. An uncanny reprise on incl. numerous col. ills. (Tate Publishing, London, In contrast to the Raqs Media Collective the black monochrome beloved of key mod- 2012), £24.99. ISBN 978–1–84976–010–2. display, the larger exhibition Burtynsky: Oil is ernists from Malevich to Reinhardt to Stella, 2 See the interview with Ann Gallagher online at devoted to a selection of works by a single while also recalling Serra’s bitumous oil-stick Tate’s website. Hirst materialised that experience established artist. While the thirty works on drawings, it rings a substantive change on one several years later by way of Jaws, when Saatchi display are from a larger documentary series of the constant motifs in Hirst’s own reper - commissioned The physical impossibility of death in the tory. In equal part revolting and compelling, mind of someone living (1991; Fig.35), the celebrated shark this macabre object is imbued with the kind of suspended in a tank of formaldehyde. 3 The diagram outlining the galleries of the exhibition binary oppositions – life/death, dark/light, in the free brochure does not indicate the footprint of positive/negative, transcendence/degrada- the shop; nor is there mention of it in either of the tion, sublime/grotesque – that inform so two catalogue essays or Nicholas Serota’s interview much of Hirst’s art. Similar binaries underpin with the artist. the final work in the show, The incomplete truth 4 See the interview cited at note 2 above. (2006), comprising a white dove suspended in 5 For example, where Warhol raised the spectre of art formaldehyde. Taken together with the adja- and business in the 1980s in ways that challenged and cent butterfly collages in which the insects’ continue to challenge the contemporary art world (not resplendent bodies have been arranged into only in the United States), Hirst has raised similarly compositions that resemble stained-glass win- problematic questions regarding mass popularity and celebrity to a level that Warhol dreamt of but never dows, these works give weight to Hirst’s achieved. recent comment that he has become ‘a reli- 6 Hirst is not the only artist who probes terrain that is gious artist’.4 Not only is this an improbable unsettling to most art-world professionals: Jeff Koons role for a leading artist today, but Hirst puts a and Takashi Murakami are among a number of cohorts further spin on it, glossing it with a peculiarly with considerable reputations and resources today. His British interpretation: an evangelical spirit rhetoric notwithstanding, Koons is not now, and is redolent of Late Victorian visual culture. never likely to become a major figure in American Hirst enthusiastically celebrates the fact that mass culture in the way that Hirst has become in contemporary art has finally become popular Britain. 7 Like Hirst, these are two artists that the Tate has in Britain. Arguably no individual, other than featured in substantial exhibitions in recent years, the perhaps Charles Saatchi, has been as instru- Gagosian Gallery includes among the key figures in its 38. Oil refineries #22. St. John, New Brunswick, mental as he in effecting this shift in public stable of luminaries, critics of the stature of Thomas Canada, 1999, by Edward Burtynsky. 1999. 2 taste over the past quarter century.5 Britain is Crow champion, and collectors world-wide have chromogenic colour prints, 198 by 160 cm. each. exceptional in the Western world today in the avidly followed. (Exh. Photographers’ Gallery, London).

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