Contemporary Art: Damien Hirst`s New Dot Paintings @ Gagosian New York

(Drivebycuriosity) - Damien Hirst belongs to the most controversial artists of these days. Gagosian, a global art gallery empire, shows now a collection of Hirst`s dot paintings: "Colour Space Paintings" (through  June 30, 2018 gagosian ). I have seen the famous dot paintings before, but it was the first time that I saw a show which displayed only these images. Each dot painting is remarkable, but seeing a group of them together is a special experience.

The paintings at the new show were different from the dot paintings I have seen before. They had many more dots and these dots weren`t as precisely realized as the dots I have seen before. The economist & art expert Don Thompson described in his excellent book  "The Supermodel and the Brillo Box: Back Stories and Peculiar Economics from the World of Contemporary Art" (driveby) the precision & craftsmanship needed to produce Hirst`s famous paintings.



                                         Going Back To The Human Element

The press release quotes Hirst with his explanation: "I originally wanted the Spots to look like they were painted by a human trying to paint like a machine. Colour Space is going back to the human element, so instead you have the fallibility of the human hand in the drips and inconsistencies. There are still no two exact colors that repeat in each painting, which is really important to me. I think of them as cells under a microscope" (hirst).

You can see here some series of photos. Each series is focusing on the same painting, shot in different distances in order to give some impressions how the images work onto the observer. From distance, maybe 3 or 4 meters (10 feet), the clusters of dots remind of the big bang and the cosmic microwaves spreading through the universe. Coming closer the dots gain more & more shape.




                                                  Free And Spontaneous Nature

The press release also tells: "Evolving from the iconic Spot Paintings, which are among Hirst’s most recognized works, the Colour Space Paintings revisit the free and spontaneous nature of his first two spot paintings from 1986, exactly thirty years later."

And: "While the Spot Paintings were originally conceived as an endless series, the Colour Space Paintings are a finite body of work, commenced and completed in 2016. The latter adhere to some of the formal rules established for the Spot Paintings: no single color is ever repeated in a painting, and the dot size—ranging from one quarter of an inch to four inches in diameter—is consistent within each work".

Above another example

One more


                                                      Paint Like A Machine

For comparison you can see above Hirst´s "Pyrvinium Pamoate" (2008-2011, household gloss on canvas) which I photographed @ the Sotheby´s  galleries for their Fall Auctions in 2016 (here my report driveby) followed by his "Chlorpropamide (pfs)" (1996 household gloss on canvas, 76 x 94 in. (193.04 x 238.76 cm) spotted at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles (driveby).


To be continued