It takes a lot to take a look at your work and say balls to this I’m putting on a show, but that’s exactly what Damien Hirst did in 1988 when he put on his first exhibition with his friends and other students from Goldsmiths College. Now his work is going to be the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Tate Modern.
Freeze, Hirst’s 1988 opening conception and curation, opened in an abandoned warehouse in a London Port Authority admin block in London’s Docklands. Managing to pull together sponsorship from the London Docklands Development Corporation, his own work and that of his fellow students and attracting the attention of collector and long time admirer Charles Saatchi, the exhibition was a huge success and started a career that would go on to help to shape the British art scene over the last 30+ years.
Making a career out of building up a catalogue of sensational installations that blur the line between bad art and inspirational thought pieces, Damien Hirst’s influence is hard to dispute.
The Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern will include his suspended shark in formaldehyde, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), as well as other vitrines such as A Thousand Years (1990).
The two-part installation In and Out of Love, which has not been displayed in its entirety since 1991 and Pharmacy (1992), a life-size recreation of a chemist’s shop, will also be among the highlights of the exhibition.
The Damien Hirst exhibition will be opening at the Tate Modern on the 4th April 2012, running through until the 9th September 2012. Tickets are already on sale at the Tate Modern website at £14 (£12.20 concessions).
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