Perhaps we should have pity for Damien Hirst. Artistic decline is a terrible fate, even if you have immense wealth to cushion the blow. What artist, what person, wants to think all the good stuff is in the past? But Hirst apparently does think that. He could hardly confess it more clearly than by pre-dating formaldehyde animal sculptures made in 2017 to the 1990s, as whistleblowers have revealed to the Guardian.
The young Damien Hirst lived fast and thought constantly about death. At 16 he posed for a photo with a severed head in a Leeds morgue. As an emerging artist he came up with a totally new spin on the ancient theme of the memento mori by putting dead animals, including a four-metre-long tiger shark, in tanks of formaldehyde and exhibiting them as art. Dry, dusty disputes over whether readymade objects can be art paled into irrelevance before Hirst's reminders of our fleshy fragility - and for a generation that had grown up with Jaws it was a nightmare come to life.
It was Hirst that came into my mind, not Rembrandt, as I paced the hospital where my mum was having heart surgery in the 1990s. I have told Hirst that. I also truthfully told him that he helped inspire me to become an art critic. That shark changed my life.
This story is from the March 29, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March 29, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
If kids get protected from online harm, how about the rest of us?
The Australian government has proposed a ban on social media for all citizens under 16.
'It's not drought - it's looting'
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded - and one group is profiting from these extremes: the thirsty multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for water in bottles.
Life in the grey Zone
Neonatal care has advanced so far that babies born as early as 21 weeks have survived. But is this type of care always the right thing to do?
Out of tune? Band Aid under fire for Africa tropes as it turns 40
Forty years ago this month, a group of pop stars gathered at a west London studio to record a single that would raise millions, inspire further starry projects, and ultimately change charity fundraising in the UK.
Deaths shine spotlight on risks of drinking on party trail
Vang Vieng is an unlikely party hub. Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it morphed from a small farming town to a hedonistic tourist destination in the early 2000s.
Different strokes My strange and emotional week with an AI pet
Moflin can develop a personality and build a rapport with its owner - and doesn't need food or exercise. But is it comforting or alienating?
Strike zone Waking up to the rising threat of lightning
When the Barbados National Archives, home to one of the world's most significant collections of documents from the transatlantic slave trade, reported in June that it had been struck by lightning, it received sympathy and offers of support locally and internationally.
Cheap pints and sticky carpets: the old-school pub is back
In the Palm Tree pub, east London, barman Alf is taking only cash at the rattling 1960s till.
Brain gain Can a radical tax scheme convince the country's brightest to stay?
In the autumn of 2018, I moved to Lisbon for a month-long course at the Universidade .de Lisboa.
Fear and sympathy in small town divided over asylum camp
A year after anti-immigration riots, a site for asylum seekers faces hostility while some locals try to help new arrivals
