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Damien Hirst

Poisons + Remedies

October 11–November 20, 2010
Davies Street, London

Installation view Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view

Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view  Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view

Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view  Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view

Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view  Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view

Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view

Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Installation view

Artwork © Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010

Works Exhibited

Damien Hirst, These Days, 2008–09 Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 18 × 24 inches (45.7 × 61 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, These Days, 2008–09

Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 18 × 24 inches (45.7 × 61 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, These Days, 2008–09 (detail) Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 18 × 24 inches (45.7 × 61 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, These Days, 2008–09 (detail)

Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 18 × 24 inches (45.7 × 61 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, From Safety to Where, 2008–09 Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 108 × 72 inches (274.3 × 182.9 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, From Safety to Where, 2008–09

Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 108 × 72 inches (274.3 × 182.9 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, From Safety to Where, 2008–09 (detail) Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 108 × 72 inches (274.3 × 182.9 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, From Safety to Where, 2008–09 (detail)

Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 108 × 72 inches (274.3 × 182.9 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Passover, 2008–09 Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 45 × 35 inches (114.3 × 88.9 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Passover, 2008–09

Metal, resin, and plaster pills and watercolor on canvas, 45 × 35 inches (114.3 × 88.9 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Botulinum, 2010 UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 72 × 57 ½ inches (183 × 146 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Botulinum, 2010

UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 72 × 57 ½ inches (183 × 146 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Hydrochloric Acid, 2010 UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 72 × 57 ½ inches (183 × 146 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Hydrochloric Acid, 2010

UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 72 × 57 ½ inches (183 × 146 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Cytisine, 2010 UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 90 × 60 inches (228.6 × 152.4 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Cytisine, 2010

UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 90 × 60 inches (228.6 × 152.4 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Tabun, 2010 UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 90 × 60 inches (228.6 × 152.4 cm)© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

Damien Hirst, Tabun, 2010

UV ink and charcoal on canvas, 90 × 60 inches (228.6 × 152.4 cm)
© Damien Hirst. All rights reserved, DACS 2010. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates

About

When you look at pills, they look so perfect, so pure. It’s hard to believe that each one comes with a list of side effects as long as your arm.
—Damien Hirst

Gagosian is pleased to present new paintings by Damien Hirst from two series, Poisons and Remedies.

In recent years, the skull has been a recurrent icon in Hirst’s paintings and sculptures, most notably in the jeweled death’s head, For the Love of God (2007); in monumental spin paintings such as Beautiful Ahura Mazda Intoxication Painting (2007); and in the “blue paintings” such as The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth (2008), which were exhibited at the Wallace Collection, London in 2009. In his latest series, Hirst continues to explore the dichotomies at the core of human existence, through formal means such as color (black and white) and scale (large and small).

In Poisons, single images of human skulls are silkscreened in black UV ink with charcoal onto large-scale canvases. Each painting is of an evidently different skull and titled after a toxic chemical preparation, for example Thallium and Botulinum, to conflate the identity of each ghostly visage with a possible cause of death. The subtle variations in the skulls hint at the individual differences that characterize a face, while underscoring the assimilative equivalence that occurs in death.

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