Damien Hirst “Nothing Matters” | Preview

I’m a big fan of Hirst too, and although I havent see “Nothing Matters” yet I did go to “No Love Lost” his first collection of paintings and I can fully see why it got such a poor response.

The concept behind it is robust, and its a good balance to the more commercial projects he has been involved with lately, however the hype surrounding the launch (his 1st painitngs, 2nd artist ever to be shown at the Wallace Collection in their lifetime, Hirst personally paying £250,000 to redecorate the gallery, apperaing next to the great masters, etc..) meant it carried so much baggage and expectation. The paitings themselves were a big dissapointment – technically not great and far too heavily influenced by Francis Bacon, they had the feel of a 1st year art student, not one of the world’s greatest living artists. Their worst crime though was being dull – not terrible, not great just middle of the road… if Hirst’s work does anything it should be to provoke a reaction, good or bad, and it failed miserably at doing that.

First look these works have a bit more depth, but he has still some way to go before he produces a collection of paintings that offer the power and influence of his conceptual work.