The central, though not exclusive theme of Hirst's work has been an exploration of mortality, a traditional subject that Hirst has updated and extended with wit, verve, originality and force. Another consistent theme in Damien's work is the use of medical paraphernalia.The inspiration for his pharmacy pieces was the desire to make art that people really believe in, like they do medicine. Hirst states "Pharmacies provoke an idea of confidence, of trust in minimalism. I love medical logos, so minimal, so clean, there's something dumb about it". In "Pharmacy" is a room sized installation created to represent a real pharmacy with cabinets containing bottle and packages of prescription drugs. On the counter are four apothecary bottles which represent the four elements; earth, air, fire and water. Always having been fascinated with pharmaceuticals and their ability to gain peoples trust in a way not most things can. He easily address why we keep fighting to stay alive forever, while still facing the fact that we cannot, this however does not make us want the impossible any less. One of my favorite pieces is "End Game", A pristine steel case, made up of three distinct sections, measuring over six feet high and twelve feet wide. In the central section, a male and female skeleton hang back to back, facing away from each other. In Hirst's words, "they seem to hover between life and death." When I saw this piece myself in the MFAH, I believed that the skeletons who "hover" between life and death are more mesmerized in the medical devices believing that it will give them the ability to prevent death for as long as they can, only to not notice that they are already dead, and have ignored the world.
End Game
2004
Glass, Stainless steel, human skeleton, and medical equipment
Pharmacy
The Young British Artist (YBA's) is the name given to a group of conceptual artists, painters, sculptors and installation artists that mostly attended Goldsmiths College in London, Damien Hirst was one of these college students who were discovered by Charles Saatchi after a student lead exhibit. They are noted for "shock tactics", use of throwaway materials and wild-living. They achieved considerable media coverage and dominated British art during the 1990s. Some other artist YBA's are Sarah Lucas,The Chapman Brothers - Dinos & Jake,Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey, Steve McQueen, Georgina Starr
Sam Taylor-Wood, Rachel Whiteread.
I personally have seen Damien Hirst work first hand at an End Game exhibit in the Houston Museum of fine art back in the summer of 2008. And I was my first exposure to contemporary art in that setting. Seeing his End Game piece which is still there today still resonates with me. As a person who constantly is questioning the origins of socially acceptable moral behavior, Seeing his work was the first time I saw art that went beyond beauty to appeal to me, and as an artist I made me believe for the first time of none verbal communication, to say I love his work would be an understatement. Maybe because that simple juxtaposition of life and death and how their values only can come from one another, a relationship that I always believed in and kept me "sane"
"I like the way art works, the way it brightens people's lives up... but I was having difficulty convincing the people around me that it was worth believing in and then I noticed that they were believing in medicine in exactly the same way that I wanted them to believe in art"
-Damien Hirst
source
http://www.leninimports.com/damien_hirst.html
End Game- British Contemporary Art from the Chaney Family Collection- MFAH
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