Image:DAMIEN HIRST BNPS-Skatole, 1995 Household gloss on canvas 4 x 10 inches (10.16 x 25.4 cm) © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2011 Photo by Prudence Cuming Associates
January 12 – February 18, 2012
Imagine a world of spots. Every time I do a painting a square is cut out. They regenerate. They’re all connected.
–Damien Hirst
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011” by Damien Hirst.
The exhibition has been conceived to take place simultaneously across each of Gagosian Gallery’s eleven locations in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva, and Hong Kong. It will include loans from public institutions and private collections as well as from the artist. The exhibition will open in every city on January 12th and continue through February 18th, 2012. This is the first time Gagosian Gallery has dedicated all locations at once to a body of work by one artist.
Hirst’s spot paintings are among the most distinctive in contemporary art, a symbol that is recognized universally, cutting across boundaries of culture and language. Beginning with the first spot painting created in 1986, to monumental canvases where no single color is ever repeated, to the most recent works, some of which comprise spots of just 1 millimeter in diameter, this exhibition will present Hirst’s “world of spots” in a truly global context.
The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011, a fully illustrated, complete and definitive reference to all spot paintings made by Hirst from 1986 to the present will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.
“Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011” precedes the first major museum retrospective of Hirst’s work, which opens at Tate Modern in London in April, 2012.