On Tuesday my University took us the Damien Hirst Exhibition at the Gagosian Museum, London.
The exhibition caused fear, hurt, intrigue and was not for the faint hearted.
Before arriving I had no idea what to expect, I hadn't researched the exhibition, looked at pictures or even looked at who Damien Hirst was. The exhibition was full on, as soon as you walk through the doors you are greeted with two dead fish and a view of a full size shark enclosed into a clear glass box, filled with a blue liquid preserving the dead animal for exhibit.
Damien's work preserves animals such as Cows, Sheep, Fish, Birds, Sharks etc in a blue liquid called formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is mainly used as a disinfectant and fumigant in hospitals, ships, dwellings and animal handling facilities, as it is effective in killing most bacteria, viruses and fungi. Damien's use for this chemical was to preserve dead animals and to show 'preservation is futile in the face of inevitable death'.
I wanted a shark that’s big enough to eat you, and in a large enough amount of liquid so that you could imagine you were in there with it.
—Damien Hirst
His work has been extremally controversial from when he started in 1991 with his iconic Tiger Shark preserve called ‘the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living’. This work is actually my favourite from the collection as I have always had an interest in Sharks, the size of the work also intrigued me as seeing something so big, that once was a living create just exaggerated the shark films and puts into sheer context the size of a shark and for me I compared the Tiger shark to the size of a Great White which is over double the size. I also appreciated seeing a shark in real life as its such a unique and rare opportunity which I definitely felt honoured to be a part of.
The exhibition was very triggering in parts, many felt ill by the sight of dead animals and felt like the exhibition was a sight of animal cruelty. I personally was not triggered by the thought of preservation but I felt uncomfortable in the parts that Damien had disembodied parts of the animal and cut out certain elements even going as far as skinning a lamb then hanging it in a sort of cross style. I would not recommend the exhibition for easily triggered viewers or viewers who get easily upset by dead animals.
After going around a few times and looking further into the work than just the animals I noticed things such as the way the animals where places, knives and bibles in the cages with the animals and explored the deeper meaning to Damien's work. For example the Cow with the dead sliced off was probably the second biggest and most notable work, the dead was placed on a butchers silver table, the body on the floor with knives surrounding. I felt this reflected Damien's opinion on how cows and animals are slaughtered in butchers and left for the consumption of humans, this juxtaposes the original thought I had that the exhibition was fully animal cruelty, and not a stance against the matter. Another element I noticed was the skinned lambs places with there arms up in a three way composition, one main - bigger lamb in the middle, clearly reflecting Jesus on the cross with the two robbers. There was also a lamb, legs broken so that the lamb was kneeling and in a praying position, bible and rosery beads placed in its hands. This was extremally strong as I perceived this as animals praying for survival, community trying to find something to connect to, to make animals feel like they belong - animals as in humans, a reference to human survival.
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