Truth Revealed: Damien Hirst and James Fox on Ashley Bickerton
In conversation with James Fox, Damien Hirst reflects on the artwork of his longtime friend.
I can’t understand why most people believe in medicine and don’t believe in art, without questioning either.
—Damien Hirst
Gagosian is pleased to present Cathedrals Built on Sand, the largest exhibition of Damien Hirst’s Pill Cabinets to date. The presentation is realized in conjunction with Cherry Blossoms, on view from July 6, 2021, to January 2, 2022, at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris, marking Hirst’s first solo museum exhibition in France.
For this landmark sculptural series, Hirst filled wall-mounted cabinets with arrangements of pills—some real, some fabricated from resin, metal, or plaster. Intermingling art and science, the Pill Cabinets examine the limits of human belief and confront society’s faith in drugs as a panacea. The works have taken on new significance during the COVID-19 pandemic, a testament to the enduring and prescient nature of Hirst’s creations.
On view is Prototype for Lies (1998), the first work created in the series. Featuring open fiberboard shelves, the sculpture imbues the sterile grid of pills with a certain warmth. The Pill Cabinets as a whole evolved from Hirst’s earlier Medicine Cabinets, in which empty pharmaceutical packages are arranged on shelves, emulating the displays one might see at a drugstore. Clinical and pragmatic, yet inextricably linked to the human body, the Medicine Cabinets unite Hirst’s interest in post-Minimalist forms with Pop art–inspired commentary on commercial goods.
In conversation with James Fox, Damien Hirst reflects on the artwork of his longtime friend.
The Fall 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Damien Hirst’s Reclining Woman (2011) on its cover.
Sydney Stutterheim meditates on the power and possibilities of small-format artworks throughout time.
Damien Hirst speaks about his Veil paintings with Gagosian’s Alison McDonald. “I wanted to make paintings that were a celebration,” he says, “and that revealed something and obscured something at the same time.”
James Fox considers the origins of Damien Hirst’s Visual Candy paintings on the occasion of a recent exhibition of these early works in Hong Kong.
Blake Gopnik examines the artist’s “dot” paintings in relation to the history of representation in Western art, in which dabs of paint have served as fundamental units of depiction and markers of objective truth.
London’s River Café, a culinary mecca perched on a bend in the River Thames, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2018. To celebrate this milestone and the publication of her cookbook River Café London, cofounder Ruth Rogers sat down with Derek Blasberg to discuss the famed restaurant’s allure.
Jenny Saville reveals the process behind her new self-portrait, painted in response to Rembrandt’s masterpiece Self-Portrait with Two Circles.