The PinchukArtCentre (Kyiv, Ukraine) presents the solo exhibition of Damien Hirst, the Mentor Artist of the Future Generation Art Prize. For Two Weeks One Summer show embedded into the context of the second edition of the Future Generation Art Prize, Hirst presents a series of eleven dynamic new paintings he has been working on since summer of 2010. The exhibition will be open from November 3, 2012 till January 6, 2013 in the PinchukArtCentre.
Damien Hirst’s new works have been painted from life in his Devon studio. They are varying in size, from more intimate canvases to large-size paintings. They can be seen as traditional still-life, with a strong element of memento mori, depicting an array of carefully arranged elements, both natural and inanimate, alongside objects and formal devices that have made their appearance in Hirst’s sculptures and installations before. Birds, butterflies and flower blossoms with their bright colours suggest a sense of pure joy which often is countered by more sinister symbols, such as a shark’s gaping jawbone.
Some objects are painted with clarity and impasto; others appear hazy and faint, as if they were somehow more insubstantial, part of a sudden apparition or dream-like vision. Often Hirst has decided to keep the lines of the original drawings visible, sometimes combining them with a grid of white spots. In this way he suggests an underlying formal order to the arrangements of objects, fauna and flora.
Eckhard Schneider, the General Director of the PinchukArtCentre: “I am especially grateful to Damien Hirst and his unwavering commitment as a mentor artist in supporting the young generation by showing a new sequence of beautiful paintings from his series Two Weeks One Summer.”
Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Andreas Gursky and Takashi Murakami are Mentor Artists for the Future Generation Art Prize, providing advice and support for the winning artist. According to the concept of the Prize one of the Mentor artists has a parallel show at the same time as exhibition of the 21 shortlisted artists of the Future Generation Art Prize. In 2009 the exhibition of Takashi Murakami was coinciding with the first edition of the Future Generation Art Prize.
In 2009 PinchukArtCentre presented Requiem by Damien Hirst, a major retrospective of over 100 works dating from 1990 to 2008. The show brought together many of the artist’s most celebrated works: early iconic sculptures such as A Thousand Years, 1990 and Away from the Flock, 1994; the monumental butterfly triptych Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven, 2007; Death Explained, 2007, a sculpture of a shark cut in half in formaldehyde. Requiem also showed for the first time a series of skull paintings, among them: Floating Skull, 2006, The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth, 2008 and Men Shall Know Nothing, 2008. More than 300 000 persons have visited the exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre.
Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, UK. He lives and works in London and Devon. He recently had a comprehensive survey of his work to date at the Tate Modern in London. Other solo exhibitions include Cornucopia, The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco (2010), No Love Lost, The Wallace Collection, London (2009), Requiem, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv (2009), For the Love of God, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008), Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2005), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2005) and The Agony and the Ecstasy, Archaeological Museum, Naples (2004). An exhibition of the artist’s private collection, Murderme, was held at Serpentine Gallery, London, in 2006. Hirst received the DAAD fellowship in Berlin in 1994 and the Turner Prize in 1995.
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Our Magic Hour, Yokohama Triennale, The Luminous Interval, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Modern British Sculpture, Royal Academy of Arts, London (all 2011), Pop Life, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Hamburger Kunsthalle (both 2010) and Tate Modern, London (2009), Barock, MADRE, Naples (2009), Color Chart, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Broad Contemporary Art Museum and LACMA, Los Angeles (all 2008), Play Back, Musée de la Ville de Paris (2007), Re-Object, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2007), Into Me/Out of Me, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2006), In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Tate Britain, London (2004), the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and Century City, Tate Modern, London (2001).
