The Virtues

Founding member of the Young British Artists Damien Hirst proves that one way of remaining true to yourself is by reinventing yourself. With his large-format Cherry Blossoms, he fulfilled an old dream of his and his mother’s: Back when he submerged a tiger shark in formaldehyde, she implored him to at least once paint flowers. Three years ago, he did just that. Working alone and in seclusion, Hirst spent three years producing an inordinate number of paintings. In all versions, he applied enormous quantities of paint onto canvases arranged in parallel in his London studio. He painted and dripped, he flung paint, he approached the canvas in a state of intoxication and stepped back to inspect it – until his vision, expressed in paint, resembled a Japanese cherry blossom. So far, these works could be admired at the Fondation Cartier and the National Art Center Tokyo. Anyone familiar with Hirst knows that for him the cherry blossom is a symbol not just of beauty but also of ephemerality. In this way, Hirst has remained true to his most central theme.

About the Artist

At the beginning there was a dot. Circular, neither too large nor too small, unimposing, coloured. One dot, plain and simple. It stood on the wall of a warehouse in London, an area converted into an exhibition space. Other dots soon appeared around this dot, equidistant from one another, painted onto the wall. A square grid of coloured dots emerged. To prove how diverse such a grid of coloured dots could be, Damien Hirst painted a second next to it. They were called “Edge” and “Row”.
The effect was so effortlessly successful, the focus on a theme so profound. How can colours so concentrated, so bare, and yet so full of meaning, become art, become an image style? “Edge” and “Row” were both a product and the beginning of an artistic approach to colour that has been continually evolving since 1988.
Some of the grids remind us of medicines in the pharmaceutical industry. The soft pastel colours and uniform patterns of the coloured pills suggest a pain-free zone. The cryptic title given to the series by Hirst is also evocative of pharmaceutical ingredients. They have names that, were you to place them next to one another and read aloud, would sound like a poem in concrete prose: Mepromate Lepidine Histidyl - Abalone Acetone Powder.
The transferability of meaning and the transformation of content is very much in keeping with the style of the artist. One might recall the live tiger shark Hirst submerged in formalin in 1991. A silent killer of the deepest oceans, it looked out at the viewers from inside an enormous blue container, mouth wide open, teeth razor sharp. The threatening work was given the name “The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living”. Can anyone divide public opinion and whip the global art market into a frenzy in such a way? In 2007 he produced a human skull made from platinum and encrusted with 8601 pure diamonds, including a 52 carat diamond centrepiece mounted on the forehead. The skull was bought by an investment group for around $100 million. The plot thickened as we later learned that Hirst himself was a member of the group.
Hirst’s art is created to be ambivalent and revolves around a focal point in his thinking: “I’ve got an obsession with death … But I think it’s like a celebration of life rather than something morbid”. Whether preserving animals in formalin, creating kaleidoscopic images from butterflies, or covering skull x-rays with captivating colour mixtures, the young Tate Modern artist always manages to give death a smile.


Stephan Reisner

The artist’s works belong to numerous museums worldwide, including Tate Modern in London, the Astrup Fearnley Collection in Oslo, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Solo Exhibitions

2022	Damien Hirst: Cherry Blossoms, National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
	Damien Hirst: Myths, Legends and Monsters, Gagosian Gallery, Gstaad, Switzerland
	Damien Hirst: Forgiving and Forgetting, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
2021	Damien Hirst: His Own Worst Enemy, White Cube, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
	Damien Hirst: Forgiving and Forgetting, Gagosian Gallery, Rome, Italy
	Damien Hirst: Cherry Blossoms, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, France
	Damien Hirst: Cathedrals Built on Sand, Gagosian Gallery, Paris, France
2020	Damien Hirst: End of a Century, Newport Street Gallery, London, UK
	Selections from The Last Supper, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA
2019	Damien Hirst: Mandalas, White Cube, London, UK
	Sneaker Collab, MUDAC, Musée de design et d'arts appliques contemporains ,Lausanne, Switzerland
	Damien Hirst, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK
	Damien Hirst: At Play, Gormleys Fine Art, Dublin, Irland
	Damien Hirst: Cherry Blossoms, Portland Art Museum, Portland, USA
2018	Damien Hirst: Works from Schizophrenogenesis - Selected works, Galerie Boisséree, Cologne, Germany
	Damien Hirst: Colour Space Paintings, Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA
	Damien Hirst: Mickey and Minnie, Lots of Spots, A Big Heart and A Butterfly or Two ,Gormleys Fine Art, Belfast , UK
	Damien Hirst: The Veil Paintings, Los Angeles, USA
	Damien Hirst: Schizophrenogenesis Limited Edition Book Launch, Paul Stolper, London, UK
	Damien Hirst, Galerie Bastian, Berlin, Germany
2017	Damien Hirst: Visual Candy and Natural History, Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
	Damien Hirst: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, Palazzo Grassi, François Pinault Foundation, Venice, Italy
	Damien Hirst, Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow, Russia
	Damien Hirst, Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
2016	Damien Hirst: New Religion, Paul Stolper, Skopje, Macedonia
2015	Psalm Prints by Damien Hirst, Other Criteria, New York, USA
	Damien Hirst, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
	Damien Hirst x Lalique: ETERNAL ,Other Criteria, New York, USA
	Damien Hirst, Aurel Scheibler, Berlin, Germany
	Psalm Prints by Damien Hirst, Other Criteria, New York, USA
	Damien Hirst: LOVE, Paul Stolper, London, UK
2014	Damien Hirst: Black Scalpel Cityscapes, White Cube, Sao Paulo, Brazil
	Damien Hirst: Schizophrenogenesis, Paul Stolper, London, UK
2013	Damien Hirst: Freedom not Genius, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow / Moscow House of Photography, Moscow, Russia
	Damien Hirst: He Tried to Internalise Everything, 1992-1994, The New Art Gallery Walsall ,Walsall, UK
	Damien Hirst: Entomology Cabinets and Paintings, Scalpel Blade Paintings and Colour Charts, White Cube, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
	Damien Hirst: The Spot Woodcuts, Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art, New York, USA
2012	Damien Hirst: Two Weeks One Summer, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev, Ukraine
	Damien Hirst: Nucleohistone, Mattatoio Rome, Rome, Italy
	Damien Hirst. Retrospective at Tate Modern, London, UK
	Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011, Gagosian Gallery, New York, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rom, Genf, Athen, Hong Kong
	Damien Hirst Donation, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Dänemark
2011	Damien Hirst: Artist Rooms, Tate Britain, London, UK
2010	Cornucopia, Musée océanographique de Monaco, Monte Carlo, Monaco
	For the Love of God, Palazzo Vecchio, Florenz, Italien
2009	Nothing Matters, White Cube/ Huxton Square/ Mason Yard, London, UK
2008	Requiem, PinchukArtCentre, Kiew, Ukraine For the Love of God, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Niederlande
	Damien Hirst, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, USA
2007	Damien Hirst: Life, Death and Love, Kunsthuset Kabuso, Øystese, Norwegen
	Damien Hirst: Four Works from the Board Art Foundation, Portland Art Museum, Portland, USA
2006	The Death of God – Towards a Better Understanding of a Life Without God Aboard the Ship of Fools, Galeria Hilario Galguera, Mexico City, Mexiko
2005	Damien Hirst, Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst, Oslo, Norwegen
	A Selection of Works by Damien Hirst from Various Collections, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
2004	The Agony and the Ecstasy: Selected Works from 1989 – 2004, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Neapel, Italien
2003	Romance in the Age of Uncertainty, White Cube/Hoxton Square, London, UK

Group Exhibitions

2022	Best of British, Maddox Gallery, London, UK
	Take Care: Art and Medicine, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
	Crown Jewels: Best of British Contemporary, Gormleys Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland
2021	Winter Contemporary, Maddox Gallery, Gstaad, Switzerland
	The Art of Food, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona, USA
	Ti Con Zero, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy
	The Hour Forever, Dellasposa, London, UK
	Stützmappe and Bonobos: Synergies, BORCH Editions & Studio, Kopenhagen, Denmark
	Summer Contemporary, Maddox Gallery, London, UK; Gstaad, Switzerland
	Neo-Abstraction: Celebrating a Gift of Contemporary Art from John and Sara Shlesinger, Georgia Museum of Art, Athen, USA
	Sante D'Orazio: Priests, Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg Museum, Hildesheim, Germany
	POP Power from Warhol to Koons, Figge Art Museum, Davenport; David Owsley Museum of Art, Muncie, USA
	Within Reach: Masters' Editions, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
	Signatures (X), Smallville, Neuchatel, Switzerland
	Healing Power, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2020	Love, Life, Death, and Desire: An Installation of the Center’s Collections, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, USA
	Artcels Presents 'XXI’, HOFA Gallery, Mykonos, Greece
	Colección Jumex: On The Razor’s Edge, Museo Jumex , Mexico City, Mexiko
	Lichtblicke, Galerie Koch, Hannover, Germany
	Animals in Art, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark
	Mythologies: The Beginning And End Of Civilizations, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Århus, Denmark
	Astrup Fearnley Collection, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
	Animals in Art, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark
2019	Accrochage, Galerie Boisséree, Köln, Germany
	Objects of Wonder: From Pedestal to Interaction, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Århus, Denmark
	One Way Ticket to Mars, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands
	Stützmappe, BORCHs Butik ,Kopenhagen, Denmark
	Objects of Wonder. British Sculpture from the Tate Collection 1950s – Present, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, Germany
	Modern and Contemporary Works from the Permanent Collection, Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, USA
2018	Au rendez-vous des amis, Aurel Scheibler, Berlin, Germany
	The Last Image. Photography and Death, C/O Berlin, Berlin, Germany
	Do it, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Kalamazoo, USA
	Gonzalo Torné & Quico Rivas, CAC Málaga, Malaga, Spain
	Ellos y nosotros (Them and Us), Es Baluard, Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Palma De Mallorca, Spain
	Sights & Sounds: Art, Nature, and the Senses, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, USA
	Memory Palace, White Cube, London, UK
	Democracy Anew?, PinchukArtCentre, Kiev, Ukraine
	Walking On The Fade Out Lines, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China
	WOW!, Leopold Museum ,Vienna, Austria
	Brit Art, Rhodes Contemporary Art, London, UK
2017	Jewellery by Artists: From Picasso to Koons. Diane Venet’s Collection, LNMM, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
	Like a Moth to a flame, OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni, Turin, Italy
	We Are Not Alone, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
	Beyond Limits, Sotheby's London, UK
	Giving back to Nature, Opera Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
	Colori. The Emotions of Color in Art, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin, Italy
	Palm Springs Popup, Ikon Ltd., Santa Monica, USA
2016	Art Against Art, Parkett Editions, Zürich, Switzerland
	Creature, The Broad, Los Angeles, USA
	In the Cage of Freedom, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
	Corpus: Anatomical Theatre, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, St. Petersburg, Russia
	Skulls, Fried Contemporary, Pretoria, South Africa
	Curated By (?), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy
	Sculpture on the Move 1946–2016, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland
	Audacious: Contemporary Artists Speak Out, Denver Art Museum, Denver, USA
	LIFE ITSELF, Moderna Museet, Stockholm ,Stockholm, Sweden
2015	The World is Made of Stories, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
	Wintertime, Aurel Scheibler, Berlin, Germany
	Maurizio Nannucci: Top Hundred, Museion, Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bolzano, Italy
	Beyond Limits: The Landscape of British Sculpture 1950-2015, Sotheby's London, UK
	What We Call Love: From Surrealism to Now, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
	The Rise of Sneaker Culture, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, USA
	Fire and Forget on Violence, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
	Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK
2014	Peter Marino: One Way, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, USA
	CORNUCOPIA, Parkett Editions, Zürich, Switzerland
	Beyond and Between, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea
	Art Multiples, 313 Art Project, Seoul, South Korea
	14 Rooms, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland
	Second Life, KMAC Museum ,Louisville, USA
	Front Row, CFA, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
2013	Love, Now More Than Ever, Mori Art Museum, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan
	The Gesture and the Sign, White Cube, São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2012	Don't Be Shy, Don't Hold Back ,SFMOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ,San Francisco, California, USA
	ARTandPRESS - Art. Truth. Reality., ZKM | Center for Art & Media, Karlsruhe, Germany
	12 Rooms, Museum Folkwang Essen, Essen, Germany
	Made in Britain : Modern Art from the British Council Collection, Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, Athen, Greece
	Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
	Art and Press, ZKM/ Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Deutschland
	12 Rooms: Ruhr Triennale 2012, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Deutschland
	British Design 1948 – 2012: Innovation in the Modern Age, Victoria Albert Museum, London, UK
	Made in Britain: Modern Art from the British Council Collection, Benaki Museum, Athen, Griechenland
2011	O’Clock: time design, design time, Triennale di Milano, Mailand, Italien
	In the Name of the Artists – American Contemporary Art from the Astrup Fearnley Collection, Bienal pavilion, Sao Paulo, Brasilien
	Selected works from the Francois Pinault Collection: Agony and Ecstasy, ongeun Artspace, Seoul, Korea
	Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan
	Fondazione Prada _ Ca'Corner della Regina, Prada Foundation, Venedig, Italien
	The Luminous Interval, Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spanien
2010	Plus Ultra, Macro, Rom, Italien
	Have You Ever Really Looked at the Sun?, Haunch of Vension, Berlin, Deutschland
	I LOVE YOU, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Arhus, Dänemark
	C’est la vie: Vanités de Caravage à Damien Hirst, Musée Maillol, Paris, Frankreich
2009	BAROCK – Art, Science, Faith and Technology in the Contemporary Age, MADRE, Neapel, Italien
	Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
	Pop Life, Tate Modern, London, UK, 2010 Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Deutschland
	15 Years of Collecting - Against the Grain, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Deutschland
	Spridd isolerad konst (Scattered and Isolated Art), Kalmar Art Museum, Kalmar, Schweden
2008	Drei. Das Triptychon In Der Moderne, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Deutschland
	Art, Price and Value – Contemporary art and the market, Palazzo Strozzi, Florenz, Italien
	Statuephilia, British Museum, London, UK
	END GAME – British Contemporary Art from the Chaney Family Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
	Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
	Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today, MOMA, New York, USA
	The Inaugural Installation, Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA, Los Angeles, USA
2007	Art Machines – Machine Art, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/M, Deutschland
	Reflection, PinchukArtCentre, Kiew, Ukraine Turner Prize: A Retrospective, Tate Britain, London, UK
	Contemporary and Cutting Edge: Pleasures of Collecting, Part III, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, USA
	David Bailey & Damien Hirst: The Stations of the Cross, Essl Museum of Contemporary Art, Wien, Österreich
	RE-OBJECT, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, Österreich
	Draw, Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesborough, UK
2006	Aftershock: Contemporary British Art, 1990-2006, Guangdong Museum of Art, Peking, China
	The François Pinault Collection, a Post-Pop Selection, Palazzo Grassi, Venedig, Italien
	RADAR: Selections from the Collection of Vicki & Kent Logan, Denver Art Museum, USA
	Visitaciones, Museo de San Carlos, Mexico City, Mexiko
	Into Me / Out of Me, PS1 MOMA, New York, USA
	Tokyo Blossoms: Deutsche Bank Collection meets Zaha Hadid, Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2005	Rückkehr ins All/ Return to Space, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Deutschland
	Douglas Gordon’s The Vanity of Allegory, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Deutschland
	Contemporary Voices: Works from the UBS Art Collection, MOMA, New York, USA
	Prague Biennale 2, Prag, Tschechien
2004	From Moore to Hirst: Sixty Years of British Sculpture, National Museum Of Art, Bukarest, Rumänien
	Intra-muros, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nizza, Frankreich
	Works and Days: Acquisitions for the Louisiana Collection 2000-2004, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Dänemark
	Monument To Now, Nea Ionia Exhibition Space, DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athen, Griechenland
	La Collection d’Art Contemporain D’Agnes B, Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, Frankreich
	Secrets of the ‘90s, Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, Arnhem, Niederlande
	In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Tate Britain, London, UK
	Turning Points: 20th Century British Sculpture, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Teheran, Iran
2003	Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer, 50. Biennale Venedig, Italien
1997	Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
1988	Freeze, Surrey Docks, London, UK