Damien Hirst’s 2017 formaldehyde animal work from the 1990s | Damien Hirst

An investigation by The Guardian has found that three Damien Hirst sculptures were made using formaldehyde to preserve animals, even though they were made in 2017. Back in the 1990s.

The three works, consisting of a dove, a shark and two calves, have been shown in galleries in Hong Kong, New York, Munich, London and Oxford in recent years and serve as examples of work from the 1990s, winning his Turner Prize. Gainer period.

However, all three pieces were produced by Hirst’s employees at a studio in Dudbridge, Gloucestershire, in 2017. That same year, the artworks appeared for the first time in an exhibition at the Gagosian Museum of Art Hong Kong. The exhibition, “Sight Candy and Natural History,” is billed as a show of the artist’s work “from the early to mid-1990s.”

Among the artworks on display are three formaldehyde sculptures that have never been exhibited in public before. These include Cain and Abel, 1994, consisting of twin calves appearing side by side in a white box; and Dove, 1999, which features a bird with its wings spread as if in flight, placed on a Liquid-filled acrylic box.

Hirst gave a third work, a shark dissected into three pieces, titled “Myth Exploration, Interpretation, Explosion, 1993-1999.” The same sculpture is also on display at the Munich Museum of City and Contemporary Art.

The Guardian could find no mention that these works existed in any form before 2017. Sources familiar with the three works said that contrary to the impression given by the dates in the titles, the sculptures were less than a year old when they first appeared in Hong Kong.

It is understood that “Dove, 1999” has been sold during or after the Hong Kong exhibition. However, between 2018 and 2024, the calves and dissected sharks appeared in multiple public galleries and museums in the United States and Europe. In each exhibition they are displayed next to dates from the 1990s.

It is generally accepted that the dates of artworks refer to the year they were completed. However, in response to questions from the Guardian, Hirst’s company Scientific Ltd said the date the artist assigned to his formaldehyde work did not represent the date of its creation.

The statement read: “The Formaldehyde works are conceptual artworks and the dates Damien Hirst assigns to them are the dates when the works were conceived. Over the years, he has been clear when asked what is important in conceptual art. ;It is not the physical making of an object or the renewal of its parts, but the intention and idea behind the artwork.”

Hirst’s lawyers later clarified that while using the date of conception in the title was the artist’s “customary approach” to formaldehyde works, he also sometimes used the date a sculpture was made. “The dating of artworks, especially conceptual artworks, is not governed by any industry standards,” they said. “Artists have every right (and often do) to be inconsistent in the dating of their works,” they added.

However, this approach seems inconsistent with industry norms in the art world. The Guardian consulted a range of art suppliers, gallerists, academics and auction houses, including some who have exhibited or sold Hirst’s works in the past. All said that dates on contemporary artwork often indicate the year it was actually created, rather than the year it was conceived.

The Gagosian Hong Kong exhibition, which featured Pigeon, Dissected Shark and Twin Calves for the first time, was a perfect opportunity for Hirst to showcase his older work to new markets in East Asia. “I like them better now than when I made them,” Hirst told the South China Morning Post during the 2017 exhibition. The same article also noted that some artworks “show their age.” .

This may be in line with a suggestion that Hirst denies that his company made a concerted effort to give the sculptures the appearance of works of art that have suffered years of wear and tear. Sources told the Guardian that Science instructed staff to artificially age the sculptures to make them look like they were made in the 1990s.

Hirst’s lawyers acknowledged that his works were sometimes “made to look older or worn.” But they said any such steps were part of the “artistic process” and denied “any suggestion that Science staff had been advised to ‘physically age’ artworks in order to falsely represent that the works were more aged than they actually were. Ancient. “Yes”.

While there seems to be broad consensus in the contemporary art world that the date of an artwork indicates the year it was created, there are some caveats. For example, for works created over time or copied after the initial version, artists sometimes use hyphens or slashes to include date ranges.

When Hirst showed dissected sharks in Hong Kong, the title included this date range: Myth Exploration, Explanation, Explosion, 1993-1999. However, the date range Hirst used for the sculpture suggests the artwork was conceived in 1993 and completed in 1999, when in fact it was produced in 2017.

Subsequent exhibitions, including the current one showing the sculpture in Munich, no longer mention 1999 at all.

Recently, Hirst has made seemingly confusing remarks about the origins of “The Myth of Discovery, Explanation, Explosion” In 2020, he commented on the works in an Instagram video, which was on display at his Newport Street gallery in London.

Wearing a gray beanie, Hirst walked around the shark fragments and described the piece as “an idea for sharks in ’93, but I didn’t start doing it until a few years later.” He added that the work was created “at a similar time” to the time he was cutting up the cow in his famous formaldehyde sculpture Mother Separated from Child. The work was created for the 1993 Venice Biennale.

Hirst said in an Instagram post that the exhibition featuring the sculpture, called “Century End,” includes “many works that I created in the 20th century, before 2000.” Hearst’s lawyers said it was wrong to suggest that Hearst intentionally misled the public in his Instagram posts.

Back in 2006, Hearst found itself at the center of another controversy, this one over the need to refurbish or update perishable formaldehyde products. This is related to the work for which he became famous: Formaldehyde Shark “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living” (1991), which was purchased by American hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen for $8 million.

Hurst offered to replace the 4-meter (14-foot) tiger shark that had rotted in the tank. Cohen agreed to pay to replace it with a new tiger shark hanging in the old tank, sparking a debate over whether it could still be called the same work.

“This is a big dilemma,” Hurst said at the time. “Artists and conservators have different views on what is important, the original artwork or the original intention. I come from a conceptual background, so I feel like this should be intentional. It’s the same work. But the jury will be out very much in the future. conclusions over a long period of time.”

However, the three formaldehyde works produced prior to the 2017 Hong Kong exhibition raise a very different set of questions about whether Hirst was sufficiently transparent about the work’s origins. Pigeons, Twin Calfs or Dissected Sharks are not refurbished Formaldehyde works, nor are they official versions or reproductions of earlier works.

In recent years, they have been exhibited in galleries around the world, and may easily lead the public to believe that they were created in the 1990s. It is also possible that Hirst’s other formaldehyde works from the 1990s were created in subsequent decades.

Awkward question

Any ambiguity about the origins of any of Hirst’s formaldehyde works could raise awkward questions, including about the institutions that promoted his work.There is no public list, or receive catalogHirst’s sculptures, so galleries, auctioneers and museums rely on science to understand the details.

Hirst’s lawyers said it was normal for galleries, museums and auction houses to obtain details of artworks “and then provide further information if required or raised in any special circumstances”. Inquire”. One might now question what exactly Hirst told the gallery about the three works created in 2017.

In 2021 and 2022, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History is displaying what it calls “Damian Hirst’s famous artwork of Cain and Abel (1994)” as part of the Future of Meat exhibition, a Exhibition on the production and consumption of animal products. Hirst posted a photo of the sculpture on display at the Oxford Museum, titled: Cain and Abel (1994).

A spokesman for the museum said: “These dates were provided by Science Ltd and, in accordance with art labeling conventions, the museum understands them to date the creation of Cain and Abel. The museum has reproduced them exactly as presented by Science Ltd, with the dates placed In parentheses, Science Ltd. signed our artwork label prior to printing.”

The Guardian reported that the work was actually created in 2017, with the spokesperson adding: “We followed industry practice and used the date of creation provided by the artist, so the public was not misled.”

Gagosian, which hosted the 2017 Hong Kong exhibition and subsequently exhibited two identical works at galleries in New York and London between 2018 and 2023, said: “Gagosian is transparent with its clients. We are known as Science (UK) Ltd. Your view is disputed for the same reasons raised in the reply.” Newport Street Gallery did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, visitors to Munich’s Museum of City and Contemporary Art (MUCA) will see Hirst’s dissected sharks in three tanks.Title: Myth Exploration, Explanation, Explosion, “1993” appears next to the date. A MUCA spokesperson said: “The museum works directly with artist Damien Hirst and his studio to stage this exhibition. As such, all artwork cataloging details are provided by the artist’s studio and are displayed in accordance with the artist’s requirements. “

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