Displaying items by tag: Damien Hirst

Though musician and cultural icon David Bowie kept his life as an art collector almost entirely a secret, the lesser-known side of his life will be revealed when hundreds of pieces from his personal collection are staged in an exhibition and auction entitled “Bowie/Collector” at Sotheby’s next month. The three-part sale on November 10 and 11 will encompass over 350 works, including a 'spin' painting Bowie created in collaboration with Damien Hirst, an altarpiece by Renaissance master Tintoretto, works by 20th Century British Masters, and more. These pieces have been published in a catalogue, and images are displayed online to give the public a sneak-peek.

Christopher Bedford, Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, has announced that Baltimore businessman, author, and collector Stephen M. Salny has made a promised gift to the museum of 48 works on paper created by some of today’s leading contemporary artists, including 11 lithographs by Ellsworth Kelly. Among the other artists represented in the gift are Josef Albers, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Damien Hirst, Jasper Johns, Sol Lewitt, Brice Marden, Robert Motherwell, and Sean Scully.

Salny’s gift will augment strengths of the Rose Art Museum collection, which includes paintings and other works by some of the artists included, notably Kelly, Johns, Motherwell, and Frankenthaler, while also extending its holdings in new directions, including the first work by Hirst to by acquired by the museum.

During the period he refers to as his “glory years”, Damien Hirst had a favourite gag. He would pull his foreskin through a hole in his pocket, then exclaim in mock alarm: “What’s that?” “People would go, ‘You’ve got some chewing gum on your trousers.’ They would touch it and go, ‘What the fuck?’” he said, smirking. He played this trick on drinking buddies and he played it on complete strangers. He particularly enjoyed targeting self-important art world types. Hirst recently turned 50, and these days he appears to be almost fully house-trained. He still has the swagger, leather jacket and T-shirt wardrobe of a rock star, and his mobile phone is loaded with eye-poppingly deviant film clips that he collects for his amusement and often shares; but he also now does yoga three times a week, and stopped flashing when he gave up drink and drugs almost nine years ago.

Britain’s most famous living artist continues to stir controversy, although he is more likely to be excoriated for the failings of the national culture than lauded as a national treasure. Guardians of “real art” and highbrow defenders of the avant garde routinely nestle together under the same duvet, shocked not so much by the paintings and sculptures and installations he churns out at an extraordinary rate as by his refusal to accept that the time has come to keep his creations, like his penis, decently out of sight.

Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist As Collector, which opened at the Barbican Art Gallery in London earlier this month, is the first exhibition in the UK to present the personal collections of post-war and contemporary artists. Ranging from mass-produced memorabilia and popular collectibles to unique curiosities, rare artifacts, and natural history objects, each collection allows an unprecedented glimpse into the oftentimes eccentric predilections of some of today’s most collected artists.

Organized by Barbican curator Lydia Yee, Magnificent Obsessions features the personal collections of well-known artists such as Sol Lewitt, Damien Hirst, Peter Blake, Martin Parr, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andy Warhol, and Martin Wong/Danh Vo, alongside at least one example of their work. The exhibition aims to use these collections as a means to provide insight into these artists’ inspirations, influences, motives, and fascinations. According to a press release from the Barbican, Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts at the gallery, said, “What a joy to have brought together the treasured private collections of the fourteen artists in Magnificent Obsessions: The Artist as Collector. The thrill of collecting is something we can all relate to, and I am sure visitors will enjoy this deeply personal and endlessly fascinating show.”

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is kicking off its 50th anniversary with a major gift of contemporary art. Local collectors Jane and Marc Nathanson have promised the institution eight works created  over four decades, including seminal pieces by Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. The bequest marks the beginning of a campaign, chaired by LACMA trustees Jane Nathanson and Lynda Resnick, to encourage additional promised gifts of art in honor of the institution’s anniversary. The Nathansons’ donation is estimated to be worth around $50 million.

Well known for their philanthropic endeavors in the Los Angeles area, the Nathansons have made several contributions to LACMA’s collection, including supporting the acquisition of a set of Ed Ruscha prints in honor of the museum's 40th anniversary.

A Damien Hirst artwork featuring butterflies stuck onto a surface of wet paint has been sold at Art Stage Singapore for US$1.6 million (S$2.15 million), making it the top sale so far this year. The artwork, titled "Amorous," was sold to a collector from the region last Thursday.

Confirming the sale to "The Sunday Times," Mr. Aenon Loo, 35, the Hong Kong-based director of gallery White Cube which represents Hirst, said in a phone interview that Damien Hirst is a rare artist "who addresses universal themes through his art."

Lalique released a new collection in collaboration with Damien Hirst on January 23, riffing on the butterfly, a motif prized by both the French crystal maker and the British artist.

Titled “Eternal,” the collection comprises 12 different colors of crystal panels, grouped into “Beauty,” “Love,” and “Hope.” Each color is available in a limited edition of 50 pieces, and each panel comes numbered and engraved with Hirst’s signature engraved on the bottom right-hand corner. The panels are designed to be displayed in a number of ways, including mounting on an easel; or framed and hung across a wall partition; or inset into a wall.

Graduates of Goldsmiths, University of London who have become household names in contemporary art, including Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Sarah Lucas, Yinka Shonibare and Michael Craig-Martin, are donating works to raise funds for a new art gallery at their old art school. Sam Taylor-Johnson, Julian Opie and Steve McQueen, whose "Twelve Years a Slave" won an Oscar last year, have also given pieces.

The works, including a spot painting and a swirl painting by Hirst, a bronze by Lucas, and one of Gormley’s cast iron standing men, are expected to raise most of the £2.8 million cost of the gallery at a Christie’s auction next month.

Damien Hirst’s forthcoming art complex, The Newport Street Gallery, is slated to open in south London this summer. Located in the up-and-coming Vauxhall district, the gallery will boast over two-thousand modern and contemporary artworks drawn from Hirst’s personal collection. In addition to works by such luminaries as Jeff Koons, Pablo Picasso, and Francis Bacon, the gallery will also display taxidermy, anatomical models, and a selection of historical objects. According to The Art Newspaper, the complex will have a changing program of exhibitions rather than a fixed installation.

Hirst enlisted the Zurich and London-based firm Caruso St John Architects to construct the gallery. The firm, whose past clients include Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Arts Council of England, and the Gagosian Gallery, is celebrated for its contemporary projects in the public realm.

Damien Hirst has unveiled his new series of paintings in Brazil, following his universally panned exhibitions at the Wallace Collection, where he showed a group of Francis Bacon inspired skull paintings and his 2012  exhibition of "Parrot Pictures" at White Cube Bermondsey. For his latest painting exhibition, Hirst has created what he describes as "portraits of living cities," the "Black Scalpel Cityscapes" are made up of vast numbers of surgical instruments that combine to create bird’s-eye views of urbanized areas from around the world. With the series, Hirst investigates subjects pertaining to the sometimes-disquieting realities of modern life – surveillance, urbanisation, globalisation and the virtual nature of conflict – as well as elements relating to the universal human condition, such as our inability to arrest physical decay.

In the paintings, manmade features and natural elements such as buildings, rivers and roads are depicted in scalpels as well as razor blades, hooks, iron filings and safety-pins, all set against black backgrounds.