Damien Hirst: End of an Era at Gagosian Gallery

Though Hirst stood for most of his time at the gallery, with his back to the crowd near the reception desk at the elevator on the 6th Floor, Emmanuelle managed to snag a photograph of herself with him. You've got to admire her chutzpah when a back-to-the-crowd is pretty clear body language saying, "I don't want to engage. Please don't approach me." Except of course, if you're a trusted friend, art dealer, advisor or Emmanuelle...


Emmanuelle Gauthier and Damien Hirst at the opening of End of an Era. Image courtesy of Emmanuelle's blackberry.









DAMIEN HIRST: End of an Era

Saturday, January 30 – Saturday, March 6, 2010
Opening reception for the artist: Saturday, January 30th, from 6 to 8 pm


Gordon Burn: If you got to make a fool of somebody, who would it be?
Damien Hirst: God.

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “End of an Era”, an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Damien Hirst.

The exhibition takes its title from the central sculpture in the exhibition, a severed bull’s head with golden horns and crowned with a solid gold disc. Suspended in formaldehyde and encased in a golden vitrine, this totemic sculpture acts as a powerful coda to The Golden Calf (2008). End of an Era proffers a sacrificial head, here dismembered from the majestic body of the earlier sculpture. While The Golden Calf symbolized the worshipping of a false idol, with End of an Era (2009) Hirst demystifies the biblical tale and, by extension, debunks his own myth-making.

Also included in the exhibition is Judgement Day (2009) a thirty-foot long gold cabinet filled with close to 30,000 manufactured diamonds. A series of photorealist paintings of famous diamonds including The Golden Jubilee (2008) The Agra (2006) and The Premiere Rose (2006) are shown together here for the first time.

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DAMIEN HIRST
Painful Memories/Forgotten Tears, 2008
Gold plated, glass and Cubic Zirconia
Diptych: 72 3/16 x 108 3/8 x 4 inches each (183.3 x 275.3 x 10.2 cm)