NEW Paintings by Damien Hirst - Are They a Return to Form?

[@nanwilder2853]

Put simply : Any “Artist” who produces works via worker-bee-production-teams, is more about commerce than art. (After all, the worker bees have to be paid, do they not?) This Damien Hirst series of soulless apartment towers vs agribusiness flowers paintings, needed serious weeding out, (pun intended) in order to make any statement about civilization. . . Too many paintings, with all of the same elements, and “Civilization” in the title = one over-hyped exhibition of minimal conceptual impact! Still, Art Gallery Explorer, as much as I’m distracted by your (horrendous) white sunglasses frames-and hidden eyes-I do truly enjoy your videos! So thank you, sir, for bringing us these gallery shows, whatever their content might be!

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for the comment about the videos (although the white sunglasses will be hear to stay for a while, I think - sorry!). I agree - over commercial and what I didn't mention so much in the video was the focus on limited edition prints via Heni. This partnership is lucrative for Hirst (as it is for other artists) and there was a lot of focus on selling prints of these 'Civilisation works'. www.myartbroker.com/artist-damien-hirst/articles/damien-hirst-heni-await-$200-million-payday

[@nanwilder2853]

@@artgalleryexplorer: AGE, your reply to my Damien Hirst comment made my day! I also greatly appreciate the link you included, though reading the article was taxing for my AU-DHD brain. . . For moi, marketing/PR has always been a plague upon Nan-kind, especially on the global scale these big egos are operating on. Ciao for now, fellow Art-lover!

[@WendySmith-l8i]

I love tulips, planted en masse as in some London Parks, so enjoyed some of the paintings. However, found them just pretty to look at and too many, nothing more. Was glad to see some portraits upstairs. Not for me but, always appreciate the opportunity to look at new work. Thank you

[@0012969]

I think the base painting was done by a staff member and Damien Hirst just sprinkled paint on it.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I'm not sure actually. You can certainly see his hand.

[@trixiekeilty4506]

I love absolutely every painting and think they are fantastic and very inspirational. Thanks for sharing!

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thanks so much for watching and for your comment.

[@graemejones2061]

Seeing these for the first time , I recognise some of the west London locations, White City - Albert bridge road- the old BBC Wood Lane -with the addition of his Trademark uniform Dots, then HE comes in and adds vertical and other paint daubs to finish a highly decretive creation, should sell well, I live near his studio so I see his doing Lots more cherry blossom trees, China Must ❤ Him

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Ah cool - that is good first hand insight. Thank you for commenting.

[@macjames8347]

Pure crap. His worst yet. Yikes. Thank you for your wonderful tours of exhibitions and most knowledgeable reviews.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for taking the time to comment - quite a few art lovers seem to agree. I actually thought they were better than some of the more recent paintings but were sadly not a 'return to form.'

[@antreb15]

I really like the 'Civilisation' series of artwork.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I am glad you enjoyed the new works - as you can see from the comments, they have split opinion. Thank you for watching and commenting.

[@mozartwa1]

very good works!... he is truly a great artist of our time

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Hist!

[@_sistersbrothers]

This info is gorgeous. Thought I lost him long ago ♡

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you very much for watching.

[@michaelrowe1907]

Haven't we seen this type of art work before. Even amongst amateurs

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Ouch! Thank you for watching and commenting.

[@ndidgenous]

They lack soul , not my thing, much respect to a great presentation 👊seems like a variation of the same work

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you very much for watching and commenting.

[@fsavoura]

I sense that this is AI driven and then manually replicated. I can almost read the given prompt while looking at it. Which is fine..audiences can consume anything, so bon apetit

[@artgalleryexplorer]

It was interesting comparing them with the Robot works upstairs which were definitely created by machines, trained by Hirst!

[@liambr101]

Good review. Agreed on your assessment. Hirst’s work has lacked depth for long enough. I’ve recently been going through older interviews around the time he won the Turner Prize; he just had so much more to say about his work. He had conviction in his ideas and was clear about what he wanted to show and the context of what he was doing. I compare that with his videos on Instagram describing his art today; I don’t think he’s even convinced by his own work, everything is just so much more rudimentary. What a shame.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for the comment and very true reflection. I know some dismissed him from the start but he was, as you say, a vital presence and seemed important in the 1990's. The fire seems to have gone.

[@missinglink9973]

Hirst is a better con man than artist in my opinion. Hirst has ripped off so many artists paintings but he's a darling with the Art insiders. The spot paintings are a rip off of Larry Poons paintings from the 60s.And the spin paintings I made those as a kid at my local summer fair in a booth beside where you get temporary tattoos. His conceptual stuff is pretty bold and interesting but cabinets with Tylenol and Band-Aids really!!Hes laughing all the way to the bank

[@frednerk8366]

Yes. I always thought he was con artist.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

He is certainly laughing all the way to the bank - but at us? I am not sure. I always think back to the time I saw One Thousand Year and I had NEVER see anything like that in a gallery before but agree, it has become increasingly derivative as time has gone on. With these works, the commercial wheels were turning but he must have buyers??

[@thomascreeley867]

I'm not deeply knowledgable about contemporary art, but here goes: the flowers reminded me of Hockney and the messiness of the backgrounds of Cecily Brown. They were not the worst paintings by a living artist I've seen. I don't know that each one had any kind of individual character. The lack of thematic depth perhaps reflects where Hirst is at this point in his life, a success without desperation or edge.

[@star_wars_miniatures]

So the “dots” in a grid formation are actually a reference to some of his older paintings from the early 2000’s which featured those dots too! Which where actually a reference to Francis Bacon as they featured heavily in his work!

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Do you mean when he was allegedly inspired by markings in Bacon's studio? He was certainly a fan of Bacon. Francis Bacon is coming the the NPG this Autumn which gives us a chance to renew acquaintances with him!

[@star_wars_miniatures]

@@artgalleryexplorer yea looking forward to that exhibition October 10th I believe!! Running all the way until January next year! Sounds like heaven to me with all those Bacon’s in one place!

[@WaverleyWanderer]

It would be interesting to make a copy of something similar and try to live with it for a few weeks.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

It would be an interesting idea. I think I would still find them too much, colour wise if they were exact replicas.

[@WaverleyWanderer]

@@artgalleryexplorer I might try some but give it a local spin, just to see what it looks like.

[@enginkemal7398]

Nicely presented video with good review, thank you

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you very much for watching and for your kind words.

[@kimwilkie9819]

Good review of the work.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you very much for taking the time to comment and watch.

[@lobstermash]

Somewhere there's an old pamphlet of the Netherlands bulb farms with crude colour printing ... Or possibly, on second thoughts, National Geographics from the 80s.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Ouch - but I found them overly commercial too and not in a good way. Thank you for watching!

[@graemejones2061]

in his upper studio he's been working on a River View series,,,,, for maybe 2-3 years , don't know why these haven't come to light yet , and HE has done ALL the painting, just answered my own question. . . 🤔

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I'd like to see those and yes - you can see the hand of the artist.

[@ChrisC-ei2kc]

Flower's for the dead.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Or for a dead civilisation??

[@ChrisC-ei2kc]

@@artgalleryexplorer A species of the dead.

[@theworldaccordingto4555]

The flower cityscapes were ok. I agree with what you said that after seeing one after another they got sickly sweet. And that the colour is very primary and secondary at best. The Robot Works (if that's what you said they are titled), the portraits of Tesla, Anne Frank etc just looked like he had painted over some bad simplified photoshop computer printouts, pasted onto the panels, then coloured in with thick paint... They looked lazy to me, or like some student's 'O' Level or Art Foundation Course work inspired by some Warhol show they'd seen. I'm not sure what the point of them was and whether or not we even need them in the world. It reminds me of a song lyric by Frank Zappa (though British, not American) "I'm a moron and this is my wife She's frosting a cake with a paper knife All what we got here's American made It's a little bit cheesy But it's nicely displayed Well we don't get excited when it Crumbles and breaks We just get on the phone And call up some Flakes They rush on over And wreck it some more And we are so dumb They're linin' up at our door"

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thanks for the Zappa lyrics. Very apt. I should have said more about the works produced by Robots. I agree, they are kind of an experiment more than great art and are already overtaken by other AI works. Thank you for watching and commenting.

[@kerryfletcher8114]

I didn't think it looked hopeful. The paintings look over satiated, with sickly hope!! It looks like a glut. In that sense I think they kind-of work as social commentary, maybe in spite of himself, or not. I don't know his earlier painting. ❤ cheers and thanks for your work!

[@nanwilder2853]

Did you mean to say over-saturated?

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I am inclined to agree. Hope is a difficult subject matter to paint and the colours were almost too desperate to be hopeful.

[@danielboard9510]

Seurat, but then probably either too anally retentive or pretensions to mention the elephant in the room.

[@peko1967]

Loved the Aphex Twin images. But I'm a fanboy so...

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Yes - they struck me too. I remember see him opening for the Orb at a Brixton Academy all nighter a long, long time ago in the early 90's and he blew my mind with his ferocity. I have not stopped listening since. if it wasn't for blasted copyright, he would certainly be accompanying some of my videos, including this one!

[@jonnybleakley2238]

Thanks again for an interesting well presented vlog. Shallowness in society is perennial thing + this, according to Damian Hurst, is its specific look for now. My view is that the civilization paintings do have something interesting to say about a troubled, fragile, uncertain global homogeneity. Contemplating them made me make a connection with 19th century American Thomas Coles civilization series of paintings.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you so much for commenting and it is interesting to hear a positive perspective. I felt, in places (I guess what I meant by vibing with them in the vlog) a flurry of excitement in a couple of works but there were too many! Interesting link to Cole and his 'Course of Empire' paintings.

[@jonnybleakley2238]

Yes agreed there was a lot of them all looking very similar.

[@marthaevans8270]

One of the civiization series reminded me of an area in Toronto- St Lawrence Market before the erection of a larger structure changed that. Over all I found them a bit twee snd monotonous in comparison with 19th century's Cole's dynamic city landscapes.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Oh really? That's interesting because some of them are apparently 'imagined' and some from memory so maybe that is an inspiration. I agree - to many and, although several excited me, they became too much. Thank you for commenting.

[@Nancy-tr5fi]

So he can paint. I like them and I am not a fan especially. They are beautiful flowers and I am attracted to those colors. I am a painter.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Interesting perspective. Thank you for commenting.

[@clamda]

the kind of works sold to dodgy oligarchs for their hollow palaces. soulless…maybe in that respect it reflects western decadence and possibly a signpost to civilisation in terminal decline think of it as something akin to the art at the end of the Roman Empire. A last thought, this art has been made at arms length: largely manufactured in studio workshops, under instruction and painted by assistants, Damien coming in at the end with his splattering 😮

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I can agree with a lot of what you say - lots of the more interesting contemporary works are coming from outside 'The West' (with honourable exceptions). I have been following a lot of Artists from West Africa, for example. I just hope that it is not a 'permanent decline.' Thank you for commenting.

[@juliabrickful]

This is just what the mega rich want... Large colourful paintings for their large vacant walls. Decorative art... Cleaver move

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I can certainly see what you are saying. I overheard someone saying something similar in the gallery!

[@samtan4729]

Kitsch is a good description. They are not even middling, just bad.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thanks for watching and commenting. Too much for me!

[@michaelkyriacou7026]

Everyone's an art critic... OK,not too shabby, the vertical lines seem ott ,plus the sun rays are on the gimmicky side!!

[@artgalleryexplorer]

There is definitely some use of colour which is not so well handled! Thank you foe watching.

I don't even dislike the paintings, I'm indifferent. They come across to me like those paintings you find in offices or waiting rooms; colourful, superficially pretty, forgettable. I'm an artist myself so I always try to see the positive on others' work, but I'm just... so meh about this.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for commenting and ouch! Even more painful than being seen as terrible!

[@pedrorocha9722]

Kitch for the super rich. Appearently, mr hirsh still does not have enough money.

[@star_wars_miniatures]

I absolutely love Damien Hirst but I have to say I don’t like anything he’s produced after 2014 😅 His paintings at the white cube exhibition called “two weeks one summer” were probably the last ever thing I liked of his!

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I am a fan too but not really since the early 2000's. The style of 'Two weeks, one summer' was so different, wasn't it. Much darker.

[@ubbucle]

not overly brilliant!

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for commenting - and I agree, sadly as a fan in the past.

[@charlottepiper1992]

Truly awful work! It seems to me the flower/building paintings (partic. the palettes) are geared towards the Asian Art Market. The portraits and abstract works were pretty dismal too.

[@raydavies5249]

sell out..... c'mon Damien....

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for commenting - hopefully more to come.

[@milim96]

This is trash. He is ruining his name for money. Looks like Chinese art from the marked/ student made if you ask me.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

A strong opinion. I certainly felt these were produced with a certain seller in mind. Also, the prints are a huge business so I guess they have been made for that as well. Thank you for commenting.

[@angusstewart6237]

Maybe the choise of sickly ice cream colours is comment on woke.

[@starkr111]

Utter shit. To call them artistically weak would be undue praise.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Lots of strong opinions on this show.

[@GenerateGoodInformation]

I thought the painting were kind of neat. I'd like to get in there and check out all those whips of white. Then again anyone can whip paint. Whip up your own paintings and enjoy those. High art is silly.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for commenting - these paintings that have split opinion.I guess the question is - is this high art??

[@GenerateGoodInformation]

@@artgalleryexplorer well yes. Damien Hurst creates high-art. Since he's become a marque artist, he can't create anything else.

[@sotocine99]

That is LSD-impressionism. Not my world.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for commenting and that is an interesting way of describing the works.

[@frogtastic1000]

I'm a fan of DH but his work over the last few years has been pretty bad.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Good to hear from you frogtastic1000! Yes, sadly I agree - I was certainly a fan back in the 1990's.

[@bellascharfenstein]

They're sort of interesting works, visually in a floral bouquet sort of way, but don't infuse my mind: not like his conceptual works which though very confronting were intellectually challenging. It's like he fell into a vat of petals but has lost his scentsability (😜)

[@artgalleryexplorer]

I am inclined to agree!

[@austinmurphy3933]

They're shite.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for watching and commenting

[@austinmurphy3933]

@@artgalleryexplorer No prob, you (italics) were great!

[@stevenwilliambaylessparks3730]

Worse than bad

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Thank you for watching and commenting. Quite a few in the comments agree with you.

[@rlund651]

Weak works. I agree with what you said about the works. I keep wanting him to have a real break through show that goes beyond the 90s work, this won’t be it. From the dot painting on I have not like his paintings. I guess he is still a has been.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

Sadly, it seems so. I am still waiting for a breakthrough. Thank you, as always, for watching and commenting.

[@marwinsing]

Many artists fall back upon the tools of scale and complexity to try create the illusion of intellectual sophistication (or "intelligent design" if you will) but it often falls flat and this is a good example. Twee, kitsch, cheesy, corny and technically as boring as hell. Sorry Damien, fail.

[@artgalleryexplorer]

It certainly fell flat for me - although was possibly an improvement on some recent works. Thank you for watching and commenting.