Damien Hirst at Tate Modern

In the search for the modern enfant terrible of contemporary art, argument says all roads lead to Hirst, the chap who has singlehandedly made controversial and headline grabbing art a household name. Except we all know there is nothing ‘single handed’ about Hirst’s work. Except perhaps the way he pockets his cash…

But I should at least begin under the guise of an objective view. Since April, Damien Hirst has enjoyed the largest retrospective of his work in London to date with this undoubtedly impressive exhibition at Tate Modern. Since April, Hirst has also enjoyed incessant media coverage – but probably not as much as he will have enjoyed the copious takings from the overpriced gift shop.

Apparently it is incredibly difficult not to become vitriolic when discussing Damien Hirst and herein lies my dilemma – I actually am a big fan of his work. Most of it.

The exhibition begins with Hirst testing the waters of his teenage rebellion posing with severed heads in the anatomy department of Leeds University, before moving swiftly through to his more recognisable Spot Paintings. Oddly mesmerising, these early works, clinically lining coloured dots against pristine white backgrounds, perhaps offer the first nods to Hirst’s scientific obsessions – before he discovered formaldehyde. And boy did he revel in that discovery.

Fish, glassy-eyed and translucent, line the wall with perfect mimicry of a Natural History display, yet here it is ‘art’. But if we are to give Hirst credit for something for all his troubles, it would be that his work has opened up that ever so existential question of ‘what is art?’ to the public domain.

Which leads me to A Thousand Years. Describing itself as a confined life cycle, there’s no avoiding the sensory overload this piece thrusts upon its viewer. Particularly if you end up standing by the air vent. Where the severed cow head is. Aside from upsetting animal activists and small children alike, the concept of introducing a ‘real’ living process into the designed world of the artist allows us to observe the birth, life, death and decay of organic matter in one place – surely a feat artists have striven to achieve on the canvas for centuries?

But believe me, that smell will be stuck at the back of your throat for a good few hours. Back away from the vent.

One of Hirst’s most recognisable pieces, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (aka the pickled shark), presides over the room like a monstrous presence. Yet what is most monstrous is the strange reversal of fear the work incites. Pressing our face against the glass separating us from the deadly jaws of this once powerful beast, forever contained and tamed, we stare down the gullet, almost mocking his former standing in the food chain.

This invasion of Nature’s way is also seen in Mother and Child Divided, giving you the rare opportunity to not only walk alongside nature, but through it. Claustrophobic but unavoidably engrossing, the dark, deadened flesh inside becomes all the more poignant when compared to the eerily ‘fresh’ appearance of the outside, as air bubbles hang on the hairs and eyelashes of the strangely tranquil cow and her calf.

The highlight of the exhibition has to be In and Out of Love, another full frontal exploration of the life cycle, this time with butterflies. Housed in a specially created humid environment, canvases decorated with what on first glance could be mistaken for popped balloons of paint, on closer inspection are revealed to be pupae, their inhabitants now flitting around the room, drawn to the fruit and cigarette laden table in the centre.

Drunk and disorientated from the sugar water, the butterflies live out their life and death as art, born from the canvas and meeting their end, defeated in the corners of the gallery. And then later as collage material for Hirst, aptly immortalised in a beautiful juxtaposition of science and religion in stained glass.

Already a hopelessly enraging man, Damien Hirst’s expansive retrospective, muscling in with brute force and unashamed shock value, served to further enrage solely for the fact that I found it so thoroughly engaging and provoking. And in the interest of the ever present ‘what is art?’ debate, I think we’ve found some starting criteria.

Damien Hirst is open until September 9 at:

Tate Modern
Bankside
Waterloo
SE1 9TG

Image: Damien Hirst, Sympathy in White Major – Absolution II  2006 © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved. DACS 2011. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates