112-602: Damien Steven Hirst ( / h ɜːr s t / ; né Brennan ; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$ 384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List . During the 1990s his career was closely linked with
224-465: A Mini car that he had decorated for charity with his trademark spots was being exhibited as a serious artwork. The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern . He said Saatchi was "childish" and "I'm not Charles Saatchi's barrel-organ monkey ... He only recognises art with his wallet ... he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it." In September 2003, he had an exhibition Romance in
336-682: A 14-foot (4.3 m) tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a clear display case. In September 2008, Hirst made an unprecedented move for a living artist by selling a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever , at Sotheby's by auction and bypassing his long-standing galleries. The auction raised £111 million ($ 198 million), breaking the record for a one-artist auction as well as Hirst's own record with £10.3 million for The Golden Calf , an animal with 18-carat gold horns and hooves, preserved in formaldehyde. Since 1999, Hirst's works have been challenged and contested as plagiarised 16 times. In one instance, after his sculpture Hymn
448-684: A 3-metre-wide steel cabinet with 6,136 pills sold for 19.2 million dollars to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani , the Emir of Qatar . In June 2007, Beyond Belief , an exhibition of Hirst's new work, opened at the White Cube gallery in London. The centre-piece, a Memento Mori titled For the Love of God , was a human skull recreated in platinum and adorned with 8,601 diamonds weighing
560-474: A Thousand Years . As a result of the show, Hirst was nominated for that year's Turner Prize , but it was awarded to Grenville Davey . Hirst's first major international presentation was in the Venice Biennale in 1993 with the work, Mother and Child Divided , a cow and a calf cut into sections and exhibited in a series of separate vitrines. He curated the show Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away in 1994 at
672-485: A bloody, severed cow's head on the floor of a claustrophobic glass vitrine. Above, hatched flies buzz around in the closed space. Many meet a violent end in an insect-o-cutor; others survive to continue the cycle. A Thousand Years was admired by Bacon, who in a letter to a friend a month before he died, wrote about the experience of seeing the work at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Margarita Coppack notes that "It
784-482: A con." For James Heartfield , "The 1990s art boom encouraged sloppiness. The Young British Artists preferred the inspired gesture to patient work. They added public outrage to their palettes, only to find that it faded very quickly." Members of the group are parodied in a regular cartoon strip by Birch, titled "Young British Artists", in the British satirical magazine Private Eye . Female artists were distinctly
896-508: A country as big as America. So on one level they kind of need congratulating, which a lot of people shy away from, which is a very dangerous thing. The next week, following public outrage at his remarks, he issued a statement through his company, Science Ltd: I apologise unreservedly for any upset I have caused, particularly to the families of the victims of the events on that terrible day. In 2002, Hirst gave up smoking and drinking after his wife Maia had complained and "had to move out because I
1008-563: A cover image for the Band Aid 20 charity single featuring the " Grim Reaper " in late 2004, and image showing an African child perched on his knee. This design was not to the liking of the record company executives, and was replaced by reindeer in the snow standing next to a child. In December 2004, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was sold by Saatchi to American collector Steve Cohen, for $ 8 million, in
1120-868: A deal negotiated by Hirst's New York agent, Gagosian. Cohen, a Greenwich hedge fund manager, then donated the work to The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York. Sir Nicholas Serota had wanted to acquire it for the Tate Gallery, and Hugo Swire , Shadow Minister for the Arts, tabled a question to ask if the government would ensure it stayed in the country. Hirst exhibited 30 paintings at the Gagosian Gallery in New York in March 2005. These had taken 3½ years to complete. They were closely based on photos, mostly by assistants (who were rotated between paintings) but with
1232-558: A disused London Port Authority administrative block in London's Docklands . He gained sponsorship for this event from the London Docklands Development Corporation . The show was visited by Charles Saatchi , Norman Rosenthal and Nicholas Serota , thanks to the influence of his Goldsmiths lecturer Michael Craig-Martin . Hirst's own contribution to the show consisted of a cluster of cardboard boxes painted with household paint. After graduating, Hirst
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#17327798897731344-483: A feminine objects. Daniel Ogilivie has expressed how Judith Butler 's concept of which "…the mere act of 'doing', of casting the object, that expresses the gender and it is not any anthropomorphic association in the artwork itself," creates the feminine within Whiteread's work. With the prevalence of feminist ideology in society and the contemporary art, critics have argued that female artists like Jenny Saville in
1456-614: A final finish by Hirst. Also in 2005, Hirst founded the art book publisher Other Criteria. In February 2006, he opened a major show in Mexico, at the Hilario Galguera Gallery, called The Death of God, Towards a Better Understanding of Life without God aboard The Ship of Fools , an exhibition that attracted considerable media coverage as Hirst's first show in Latin America. In June that year, he exhibited alongside
1568-720: A full London Underground line, but the Government refused to fund it. The LDDC also built the Limehouse Link tunnel , a cut and cover road tunnel linking the Isle of Dogs to The Highway (the A1203 road) at a cost of over £150 million per kilometre, one of the most expensive stretches of road ever built. The LDDC also contributed to the development of London City Airport ( IATA airport code LCY), opened in October 1987 on
1680-640: A further sign of regeneration in the area, the Docklands now has its own symphony orchestra, Docklands Sinfonia ; which was formed in January 2009 and is based at St Anne's Limehouse . The offices of The Independent group of publications were at one time situated in the Docklands. In 2008, Independent News & Media announced that The Independent would be moving its offices to Northcliffe House in Kensington . London's Docklands has become one of
1792-489: A large IRA bomb exploded at South Quay on 9 February 1996 . Two people died in the explosion, forty people were injured and an estimated £150 million of damage was caused. This bombing ended an IRA ceasefire. James McArdle was sentenced to 25 years of jail time but released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and royal prerogative of mercy officially signed by Queen Elizabeth II . In
1904-742: A large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head. (The installation was later a notable feature of the Sensation exhibition.) Saatchi became not only Hirst's main collector, but also the main sponsor for other YBAs–a fact openly acknowledged by Gavin Turk. The contemporary art market in London had dramatically collapsed in mid-1990 due to a major economic recession, and many commercial contemporary galleries had gone out of business. Saatchi had until this time collected mostly American and German contemporary art, some by young artists, but most by already established ones. His collection
2016-713: A major exception is the Surrey Commercial Docks, which are now largely filled in. Although large ships can—and occasionally still do—visit the old docks, all of the commercial traffic has moved downriver further east. The revival of the Docklands has had major effects in other run-down surrounding areas. Greenwich and Deptford are undergoing large-scale redevelopment, chiefly as a result of the improved transport links making them more attractive to commuters. The Docklands' redevelopment has, however, had some less beneficial aspects. The massive property boom and consequent rise in house prices has led to friction between
2128-534: A male-dominated art college". Now consciously aware of institutional patriarchy, Saville began to paint female nudes that weren't idealised. Rather than continue the recognised historical male view of female bodies, Saville created depictions of natural women with genuine flaws. Pubic hair trailing up stomachs and around thighs, discoloured skin and areas of excess flesh. Deconstructing the feminine body, Saville has stated that, "I'm not trying to teach, just make people discuss, look at how women have been made by man. What
2240-477: A minority amongst the male dominated environment of the Young British Artists. Individuals such as Sarah Lucas , Jenny Saville and Rachel Whiteread have varied levels of neglect within their media portrayals, as well as incomparable in notoriety to male YBA peers such as Hirst. The University of Sussex's Art Society Journal describes how feminists in the 1980s influenced the female members of
2352-466: A number of tight-knit local communities with their own distinctive cultures and slang. Due to poor communications with other parts of London, they tended to develop in some isolation. Road access to the Isle of Dogs , for example, was only via two swing bridges . Local sentiment there was so strong that Ted Johns, a local community campaigner, and his supporters, in protest at the lack of social provision from
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#17327798897732464-535: A photograph of Away from the Flock was reproduced in the 1997 book by Hirst I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one-to-one, always, forever, now, the vandalism was referenced by allowing the tank to be obscured by pulling a card, reproducing the effect of ink being poured into the tank; this resulted in Hirst being sued by Bridger for violating his copyright on Black Sheep. In 1995, Hirst won
2576-525: A public denunciation, and Brian Sewell (art critic of the Evening Standard ) was consistently hostile, as was David Lee , the editor of Jackdaw . Rolf Harris , the television presenter and artist, singled out Tracey Emin's My Bed as the kind of installation that put people off art. "I don't see how getting out of bed and leaving the bed unmade and putting it on show and saying that's worth, I don't know £31,000 ... I don't believe it, I think it's
2688-470: A reported £1m) was given pole position at the show Ant Noises (an anagram of "sensation") in the Saatchi Gallery. Hirst was then sued himself for breach of copyright over this sculpture (see Appropriation below). Hirst sold three more copies of his sculpture for similar amounts to the first. In September 2000, in New York, Larry Gagosian held the Hirst show, Damien Hirst: Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings . 100,000 people visited
2800-510: A reputation for pushiness, yet it should also be said that in terms of ambition, attention to display and sheer bravado there has been little to match such shows in the country's established contemporary art institutions. They were far superior, for instance, to any of the contemporary art shows that have been staged by the Liverpool Tate in its own multi-million-pound dockland site." Established alternative spaces such as City Racing at
2912-496: A shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine , and Emin's My Bed , a dishevelled double bed surrounded by detritus. There is some disagreement as to the first use of the term "young British artists." Tate claims that it was Michael Corris in a footnote in Artforum , May 1992, Others claim that it was Saatchi who had already entitled his exhibition "Young British Artists I" in March 1992. The acronym "YBA" (or "yBa")
3024-599: A staunch advocate of the artists, as has art writer Louisa Buck , and former Time Out art editor, Sarah Kent . Sir Nicholas Serota has validated the artists by the nomination of several of them for the Turner Prize and their inclusion in the Tate collection. Maureen Paley said, "The thing that came out of the YBA generation was boldness, a belief that you can get away with anything." Speaking in 2009, Iwona Blazwick ,
3136-441: A total of 1,106.18 carats. Approximately £15,000,000 worth of diamonds were used. It was modelled on an 18th-century skull, but the only surviving human part of the original is the teeth. The asking price for For the Love of God was £50,000,000 ($ 100 million or 75 million euros). It didn't sell outright, and on 30 August 2008 was sold to a consortium that included Hirst himself and his gallery White Cube. In November 2008,
3248-490: Is as if Bacon, a painter with no direct heir in that medium, was handing the baton on to a new generation." Hirst has openly acknowledged his debt to Bacon, absorbing the painter's visceral images and obsessions early on and giving them concrete existence in sculptural form with works like A Thousand Years . Hirst gained the world record for the most expensive work of art by a living artist —his Lullaby Spring in June 2007, when
3360-514: Is beauty? Beauty is usually the male image of the female body. My women are beautiful in their individuality." London Docklands London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London . It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark , Tower Hamlets , Lewisham , Newham and Greenwich . The docks were formerly part of the Port of London , at one time
3472-400: Is of a girl in leg irons holding a collecting box. In Hirst's version the collecting box is shown broken open and is empty. Charity was exhibited in the centre of Hoxton Square , in front of White Cube. Inside the gallery downstairs were 12 vitrines representing Jesus's disciples, each case containing mostly gruesome, often blood-stained, items relevant to the particular disciple. At the end
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3584-759: The East ;Country Yard Show in a disused warehouse in London Docklands which was installed over four floors and 16,000m of exhibition space. Writing in The Independent , art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon said: "Goldsmiths graduates are unembarrassed about promoting themselves and their work: some of the most striking exhibitions in London over the past few months—"The East Country Yard Show", or "Gambler", both staged in docklands—have been independently organized and funded by Goldsmiths graduates as showcases for their work. This has given them
3696-678: The 2011 Birthday Honours List, Sam Taylor-Wood and Gillian Wearing were appointed to the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II . Several of the YBAs have been elected as lifetime members of the Royal Academy of Arts in London (founded by George III in 1768); hence they are "Royal Academicians," and may use the letters "RA" after their name to indicate this. Richard Cork (at one time art critic of The Times ) has been
3808-565: The Hayward Gallery in 1983. Davison created abstract collages from torn and cut coloured paper which, Hirst said, "blew me away", and which he modelled his own work on for the next two years. He worked for two years on London building sites, then studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College (1986–89), although again he was refused a place the first time he applied. In 2007, Hirst was quoted as saying of An Oak Tree by Goldsmiths' senior tutor, Michael Craig-Martin : "That piece is, I think,
3920-604: The Nicholas Treadwell Gallery, amongst which were a "hanging, anatomically detailed leather straitjacket, complete with genitals", titled Pink Crucifixion , by Mandy Havers. In 1999 the Stuckists art group was founded with an overt anti-YBA agenda. In 2002 Britart was heavily criticised by the leading conductor Sir Simon Rattle , who was, in return, accused of having a poor understanding of conceptual and visual art. Playwright Tom Stoppard made
4032-617: The Paul Stolper Gallery titled: 'Schizophrenogenesis'. In April 2016, a study published in Analytical Methods claimed Hirst's preserved carcasses leaked formaldehyde gas above legal limits at Tate Modern ; however, this study was shown to be flawed. Young British Artists The Young British Artists , or YBAs —also referred to as Brit artists and Britart —is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of
4144-526: The Secretary of State for the Environment , Michael Heseltine , formed the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) to redevelop the area. This was a statutory body appointed and funded by central government (a quango ), with wide powers to acquire and dispose of land in the Docklands. It also served as the development planning authority for the area. Another important government intervention
4256-755: The Security Express robbery and the Tonbridge cash depot robbery . The end came suddenly, between approximately 1960 and 1970, when the shipping industry adopted the newly invented container system of cargo transportation. London's docks were unable to accommodate the much larger vessels needed by containerization, and the shipping industry moved to deep-water ports such as Tilbury and Felixstowe . Between 1960 and 1980, all of London's docks were closed, leaving around eight square miles (21 km ) of derelict land in East London. Efforts to redevelop
4368-474: The Serpentine Gallery in London, where he exhibited Away from the Flock (a sheep in a tank of formaldehyde). On 9 May, Mark Bridger, a 35-year-old artist from Oxford, walked into the gallery and poured black ink into the tank, and retitled the work Black Sheep . He was subsequently prosecuted, at Hirst's wish, and was given two years' probation. The sculpture was restored at a cost of £1,000. When
4480-467: The world's largest port . After the docks closed, the area had become derelict and poverty-ridden by the 1980s. The Docklands' regeneration began later that decade; it has been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name "London Docklands" was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 and has since been almost universally adopted. The redevelopment created wealth, but also led to some conflict between
4592-548: The 1980s and 1990s saw a huge area of the Docklands converted into a mixture of residential, commercial and light industrial space. The clearest symbol of the whole effort was the ambitious Canary Wharf project that constructed Britain's tallest building at the time and established a second business district (CBD) in London. However, there is no evidence that the LDDC foresaw this scale of development; nearby Heron Quays had already been developed as low-density offices when Canary Wharf
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4704-567: The 1990s investigated the contrived idea of 'feminity' made by the Patriarchal Structure. While attending art school in Cincinnati, Saville's feminist passion was conceived through a realisation of gender within art history. In her own words, she discovered that, "I'd always wondered why there had been no women artists in history. I found there had been – but not reported. I realized I'd been affected by male ideas, going through
4816-409: The 1990s; internationally reviewed shows in the mid-1990s included Brilliant! and Sensation . Many of the artists were initially supported and their works collected by Charles Saatchi . One notable exception is Angus Fairhurst . Leading artists of the group include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin . Key works include Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living ,
4928-499: The Age of Uncertainty at Jay Jopling's White Cube gallery in London, which made him a reported £11m, bringing his wealth to over £35m. It was reported that a sculpture, Charity , had been sold for £1.5m to a Korean, Kim Chang-Il, who intended to exhibit it in his department store's gallery in Seoul . The 22-foot (6.7m), 6-ton sculpture was based on the 1960s Spastic Society's model, which
5040-533: The Docklands has more than doubled during the last 30 years, and the area has become a major business centre. Canary Wharf has emerged as one of Europe's biggest clusters of skyscrapers and a major extension to the financial services district of the City of London. Although most of the old wharfs and warehouses have been demolished, some have been restored and converted into flats. Many of the docks themselves have survived and are now used as marinas or watersports centres;
5152-539: The London Dockland area, such as: In the early 21st century, redevelopment is spreading into the more suburban parts of east and southeast London, and into the parts of the counties of Kent and Essex that abut the Thames Estuary . See Thames Gateway and Lower Lea Valley for further information on this trend. The numbers of several London Buses routes are prefixed D for Docklands; all run on
5264-948: The Oval in London and Milch gave many artists their first exposure. There was much embryonic activity in the Hoxton / Shoreditch area of East London focused on Joshua Compston 's gallery. In 1991, the Serpentine Gallery presented a survey of this group of artists with the exhibition Broken English . In 1992, Charles Saatchi staged a series of exhibitions of Young British Art , the first show included works by Sarah Lucas , Rachel Whiteread and Damien Hirst . A second wave of Young British Artists appeared in 1992–1993 through exhibitions such as 'New Contemporaries', 'New British Summertime' and 'Minky Manky' (curated by Carl Freedman). This included Douglas Gordon , Christine Borland , Fiona Banner , Tracey Emin , Tacita Dean , Georgina Starr and Jane and Louise Wilson . One exhibition which included several of
5376-574: The Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now , was published. With Alex James of the band Blur and actor Keith Allen , he formed the band Fat Les , achieving a number 2 hit with a raucous football-themed song Vindaloo , followed up by Jerusalem with the London Gay Men's Chorus . Hirst also painted a simple colour pattern for the Beagle 2 probe. This pattern
5488-510: The Russian billionaire art collector Viktor Pinchuk, and Hirst himself. There were then those who, staring at their own newly empty stock portfolios, found in the title apt expression of their feelings. The work itself, with its diamond-laden eye sockets and its original inhabitant's grinning teeth, seems unperturbed by any hollowness of value in the financial or art markets. It does not matter to this cynical epitome of our glittering age whether it
5600-462: The Saatchi Gallery opened at new premises in County Hall, London , with a show that included a Hirst retrospective. This brought a developing strain in his relationship with Saatchi to a head (one source of contention had been who was most responsible for boosting their mutual profile). Hirst disassociated himself from the retrospective to the extent of not including it in his CV. He was angry that
5712-756: The Surrey (1807), the Regent's Canal Dock (1820), St Katharine (1828) and the West India South (1829). The Victorian docks were mostly further east, comprising the Royal Victoria (1855), Millwall (1868) and Royal Albert (1880). The King George V Dock (1921) was a late addition. Three principal kinds of docks existed. Wet docks were where ships were laid up at anchor and loaded or unloaded. Dry docks , which were far smaller, took individual ships for repairing. Ships were built at dockyards along
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#17327798897735824-535: The Turner Prize. New York public health officials banned Two Fucking and Two Watching featuring a rotting cow and bull, because of fears of "vomiting among the visitors". There were solo shows in Seoul , London and Salzburg . He directed the video for the song " Country House " for the band Blur . No Sense of Absolute Corruption , his first solo show in the Gagosian Gallery in New York was staged
5936-720: The YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths , in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art . The scene began around a series of artist-led exhibitions held in warehouses and factories, beginning in 1988 with the Damien Hirst-led Freeze and, in 1990, East Country Yard Show and Modern Medicine . They are noted for "shock tactics", use of throwaway materials, wild living, and an attitude "both oppositional and entrepreneurial". They achieved considerable media coverage and dominated British art during
6048-482: The YBA artists was the 1995 quin-annual British Art Show . The Young British Artists revitalised (and in some cases spawned) a whole new generation of contemporary commercial galleries such as Karsten Schubert , Sadie Coles , Victoria Miro , Maureen Paley 's Interim Art , and Jay Jopling 's White Cube . The spread of interest improved the market for contemporary British art magazines through increased advertising and circulation. Frieze launched in 1991 embraced
6160-603: The YBA group of artists. Turk and Francis studied at Chelsea School of Art from 1986 to 1989, and at the Royal College of Art from 1989 to 1991. Turk and Francis exhibited work in the Saatchi Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy. A group of sixteen Goldsmiths students took part in a group exhibition of art, called Freeze , of which Damien Hirst became the main organiser; he was still in
6272-590: The YBAs from the start while established publications such as Art Monthly , Art Review , Modern Painters and Contemporary Art were all re-launched with more focus on emerging British artists. One of the visitors to Freeze was Charles Saatchi , a major contemporary art collector and co-founder of Saatchi and Saatchi , the London advertising agency. Saatchi then visited Gambler in a green Rolls-Royce and, according to Freedman, stood open-mouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years , consisting of
6384-399: The Young British Artists benefited from intense media coverage. This was augmented by controversy surrounding the annual Turner Prize , (one of Britain's few major awards for contemporary artists), which had several of the artists as nominees or winners. Channel 4 had become a sponsor of the competition, leading to television profiles of the artists in prime-time slots. The consolidation of
6496-412: The Young British Artists' artwork through the strategy of subverting feminine stereotypes. Other discourse around female YBA work include a discussion of Rachel Whiteread 's sculpture practice. Whiteread has been said to disrupt the 'clear' concept of women making 'female work'. Her work Nine Tables attempts to exist within a third space, where the forms can't be physically gendered, but still viewed as
6608-727: The artists' status began in 1995 with a large-scale group exhibition Brilliant! held at the Walker Art Center a respected art museum in Minneapolis, USA. The term "yBa" was already used in 1994 and later used by Simon Ford in a feature "Myth Making" in March 1996 in Art Monthly magazine. Art dealer Jay Jopling began to represent YBAs Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey , Damien Hirst, Gary Hume , Marc Quinn , Gavin Turk and Sam Taylor-Wood, whom he married in 1998. Before Jopling, Karsten Schubert
6720-651: The class of 1988; Damien Hirst , Angus Fairhurst , Mat Collishaw , Simon Patterson , and Abigail Lane , were graduates from the class of 1989; whilst Gillian Wearing , and Sam Taylor-Wood , were graduates from the class of 1990, and Jason Martin was graduated with the class of 1993. During the years 1987–1990, the teaching staff on the Goldsmiths BA Fine Art included Jon Thompson , Richard Wentworth , Michael Craig-Martin , Ian Jeffrey , Helen Chadwick , Mark Wallinger , Judith Cowan and Glen Baxter . Gavin Turk and Mark Francis are also part of
6832-423: The collector Charles Saatchi , but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended. Death is a central theme in Hirst's works. He became famous for a series of artworks in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep, and a cow) are preserved, sometimes having been dissected, in formaldehyde . The best-known of these was The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living ,
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#17327798897736944-723: The core of the Surrey Commercial Docks ) was designed to address these problems, providing a large, secure and sheltered anchorage with room for 120 large vessels. It was a major commercial success, and provided for two phases of expansion during the Georgian and Victorian eras . The first of the Georgian docks was the West India (opened in 1802), followed by the London (1805), the East India (also 1805),
7056-402: The director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery , said, "The YBA moment is definitely now dead, but anyone who thinks they were a cut-off point is wrong. They began something which has continued to grow ever since. It's not over." In 1998, John Windsor in The Independent said that the work of the YBAs seemed tame compared with that of the " shock art " of the 1970s, including "kinky outrages" at
7168-404: The dock workers often made ends meet with petty and not so petty criminality, such as theft from the not yet containerized cargo, smuggling and fencing. As a result, the docks became "centres of excellence for criminal practice". Many of Britain's most proficient criminals learnt their trade here, including those behind the Hatton Garden heist , the Great Train Robbery , the Brink's-Mat robbery ,
7280-462: The docks began almost as soon as they were closed, although it took a decade for most plans to move beyond the drawing board and another decade for redevelopment to take full effect. The situation was greatly complicated by the large number of landowners involved: the PLA, the Greater London Council (GLC), the British Gas Corporation , five borough councils, British Rail and the Central Electricity Generating Board . To address this problem, in 1981
7392-463: The early 1990s for rather less, his first installations costing under £10,000. On 24 May 2004, a fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including 17 of Hirst's, although the sculpture Charity survived, as it was outside in the builder's yard. That July, Hirst said of Saatchi, "I respect Charles. There's not really a feud. If I see him, we speak, but we were never really drinking buddies." Hirst designed
7504-433: The early-1990s, Saatchi altered his focus to emerging British art. Saatchi put on a series of shows called "Young British Artists" starting in 1992, when a noted exhibit was Damien Hirst's "shark" ( The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living ), which became the iconic work of British art in the 1990s, and the symbol of Britart worldwide. In addition to (and as a direct result of) Saatchi's patronage,
7616-476: The following year. In London the short film, Hanging Around , was shown—written and directed by Hirst and starring Eddie Izzard . In 1997 the Sensation exhibition opened at the Royal Academy in London. A Thousand Years and other works by Hirst were included, but the main controversy occurred over other artists' works. It was nevertheless seen as the formal acceptance of the YBAs into the establishment. In 1997, his autobiography and art book, I Want To Spend
7728-419: The goods once they were ashore. Some of the workers were highly skilled: the lightermen had their own livery company or guild, while the deal porters (workers who carried timber) were famous for their acrobatic skills. Most were unskilled and worked as casual labourers. They assembled at certain points, such as pubs, each morning, where they were selected more or less at random by foremen. For these workers, it
7840-422: The greatest piece of conceptual sculpture. I still can't get it out of my head." While a student, Hirst had a placement at a mortuary , an experience that influenced his later themes and materials. While an art student, Hirst was an assistant at Anthony d'Offay ' s gallery. In July 1988, in his second year at Goldsmiths College, Hirst was the main organiser of an independent student exhibition, Freeze , in
7952-429: The last of the docks, the King George V, in 1921, as well as greatly expanding the Tilbury docks . German bombing during the Second World War caused massive damage to the docks, with 380,000 tons of timber destroyed in the Surrey Docks in a single night. Nonetheless, following post-war rebuilding they experienced a resurgence of prosperity in the 1950s. Before the later Docklands' redevelopment and gentrification,
8064-694: The mid-1990s artist-run exhibition spaces and galleries became a feature of the London arts scene. There was a less prominent predecessor organized by artist Angus Fairhurst , featuring himself, Damien Hirst , Abigail Lane , and Mat Collishaw in a small show called "Progress by Degree" at the Bloomsbury Gallery of the University of London (Institute of Education) shortly before Freeze. In liaison with Hirst, Carl Freedman (who had been friends with him in Leeds before Hirst moved to London and
8176-772: The moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things." 1987 – Damien Hirst and Holden Rowan, Old Court Gallery, Windsor Arts Centre, Windsor, UK – Curator Derek Culley 1988 – Damien Hirst: Constructions and Sculpture, Old Court Gallery, Windsor, UK -Curator Derek Culley 1988 – Freeze, Surrey Docks, London, UK 1989 – New Contemporaries, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK 1990 – Modern Medicine, Building One, London, UK 1990 – Gambler, Building One, London, UK 1990 – Building One, Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery, Paris, FR His first solo exhibition, organised by Tamara Chodzko – Dial, In and Out of Love ,
8288-612: The new and old communities in the area. In Roman and medieval times, ships arriving in the River Thames tended to dock at small quays in the present-day City of London or Southwark , an area known as the Pool of London . However, these gave no protection against the elements, were vulnerable to thieves and suffered from a lack of space at the quayside. The Howland Great Dock in Rotherhithe (built in 1696, and later to form
8400-482: The new arrivals and the old Docklands communities, who have complained of being squeezed out. It has also made for some of the most striking disparities to be seen anywhere in Britain: luxury executive flats constructed alongside run-down public housing estates. The Docklands' status as a symbol of Margaret Thatcher 's Britain has also made it a target for terrorists. After a failed attempt to bomb Canary Wharf in 1992,
8512-477: The new work, then that's all you need for copyright infringement... Quantitatively about 80% of the skull is in the second image." In April – September 2009, the exhibition Requiem took place in the Victor Pinchuk art centre. In October 2009, Hirst revealed that he had been painting with his own hand in a style influenced by Francis Bacon for several years. His show of these paintings, No Love Lost ,
8624-688: The north bank of the River Thames as part of the London bus network, and act as feeder buses to the DLR. The D network was developed in the early stages of Docklands redevelopment; it was originally much larger, but as transport rapidly improved across east London, the need for the D routes reduced. Today only four remain, running primarily in Tower Hamlets and briefly into Newham and Hackney . Stagecoach London operate routes D6, D7 and D8, and Blue Triangle operate route D3. The population of
8736-422: The piece more generally in a feature-length article on the entwined histories of European art and double-entry bookkeeping , the art historian Rachel Cohen wrote: Two years [after the sale of For the Love of God ], with financial markets imploding on every side, it was reported that the work had in fact been sold to a holding company that turned out to consist of Hirst's gallerist, his business manager, his friend
8848-589: The result was showcased in 1992 in the first Young British Artists exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in North London. Hirst's work was titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and was a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and sold for £50,000. The shark had been caught by a commissioned fisherman in Australia and had cost £6,000. The exhibition also included In
8960-506: The riverside. In addition, the river was lined with innumerable warehouses, piers, jetties and dolphins (mooring points). The various docks tended to specialise in different forms of produce. The Surrey Docks concentrated on timber , for instance; Millwall took grain; St Katharine took wool, sugar and rubber; and so on. The docks required an army of workers, chiefly lightermen (who carried loads between ships and quays aboard small barges called lighters ) and quayside workers, who dealt with
9072-636: The same time of an anti-YBA group, The Stuckists , co-founded by her ex boyfriend, Billy Childish , gave another angle to media coverage. In 2003, YBAs Jake and Dinos Chapman and Anya Gallaccio were nominated for the annual Turner Prize. On 24 May 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse destroyed some works from the Saatchi collection, including the Chapman Brothers' Hell and Tracey Emin's "tent", Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 . In 2008, YBA Angus Fairhurst died by suicide. In
9184-449: The second show in a green Rolls-Royce and, according to Freedman, stood open-mouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years , consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding on a rotting cow's head. They also staged Michael Landy 's Market . At this time, Hirst said, "I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At
9296-475: The second year of a BA in Fine Art. Commercial galleries had shown a lack of interest in the project, and it was held in a cheap non-art space, a London Docklands admin block (usually referred to as a warehouse). The event resonated with the ' Acid House ' warehouse rave scene prevalent at the time, but did not achieve any major press exposure. One of its effects was to set an example of artist-as-curator—in
9408-517: The show in 12 weeks and all the work was sold. On 10 September 2002, on the eve of the first anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, Hirst said in an interview with BBC News Online: The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of like an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually... You've got to hand it to them on some level because they've achieved something which nobody would have ever have thought possible, especially to
9520-613: The show toured to New York there was further controversy caused by the inclusion of Chris Ofili 's work "The Holy Virgin Mary". In 1997, Gillian Wearing won the annual Turner Prize . In 1998, Chris Ofili won the annual Turner Prize. In 1999, Tracey Emin was nominated for the Turner Prize . Her main exhibit, My Bed , consisting literally of her dishevelled, stained bed, surrounded by detritus including condoms, slippers and soiled underwear, created an immediate and lasting media impact and further heightened her prominence. The emergence at
9632-584: The skull was exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam next to an exhibition of paintings from the museum collection selected by Hirst. Wim Pijbes, the museum director, said of the exhibition, "It boosts our image. Of course, we do the Old Masters but we are not a 'yesterday institution'. It's for now. And Damien Hirst shows this in a very strong way." Responding to this show at the Rijksmuseum and to
9744-588: The spine of the Royal Docks . The London Underground's Jubilee line was extended eastwards in 1999; it now serves Rotherhithe/ Surrey Quays at Canada Water station , the Isle of Dogs at Canary Wharf tube station , Greenwich at North Greenwich tube station and the nearby Royal Docks at Canning Town station . The DLR was extended in 1994 to serve much of the Royal Docks area when the Beckton branch
9856-461: The state, unilaterally declared independence for the area, set up a so-called "Island Council" with Johns himself as its elected leader, and blocked off the two access roads. The docks were originally built and managed by a number of competing private companies. From 1909, they were managed by the Port of London Authority (PLA) which amalgamated the companies in a bid to make the docks more efficient and improve labour relations . The PLA constructed
9968-449: The work of Francis Bacon ( Triptychs ) at the Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street, London, an exhibition that included the vitrine, A Thousand Years (1990), and four triptychs: paintings, medicine cabinets and a new formaldehyde work entitled The Tranquility of Solitude (For George Dyer) , influenced by Bacon. A Thousand Years (1990) contains an actual life cycle. Maggots hatch inside a white minimal box, turn into flies, then feed on
10080-401: The world's leading global internet hubs since the opening in 1990 of the carrier-neutral Telehouse campus, which hosts the vast majority of LINX 's internet peering traffic, occupying over 73,000 square metres. In August 2016, Telehouse Europe opened the $ 177 million North Two data centre of 24,000 square metres that became the only UK data centre to own a 132 kV on-campus grid substation that
10192-423: The £200 he had made; he said, "I met Christian Zimmermann [from DACS] who told me Hirst personally ordered action on the matter." In June 2009, copyright lawyer Paul Tackaberry compared the two images and said, "This is fairly non-contentious legally. Ask yourself, what portion of the original–and not just the quantity but also the quality–appears in the new work? If a 'substantial portion' of the 'original' appears in
10304-533: Was actually a showing of Charles Saatchi 's private collection of their work, and he owned the major pieces. The liaison was effected by the Academy's Norman Rosenthal , even though there was strong opposition from some of the Academicians, three of whom resigned. Controversy engendered in the media about the show, particularly over Marcus Harvey's work Myra , served to reinforce the YBAs' importance. When
10416-487: Was addressed by the LDDC with the construction of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), which connected the Docklands with the city. According to Transport for London, the owner of the project, it was a remarkably inexpensive development, costing only £77 million in its first phase, as it relied on reusing disused railway infrastructure and derelict land for much of its length. The LDDC originally requested
10528-460: Was an empty vitrine, representing Christ. Upstairs were four small glass cases, each containing a cow's head stuck with scissors and knives. It has been described as an "extraordinarily spiritual experience" in the tradition of Catholic imagery. At this time Hirst bought back 12 works from Saatchi (a third of Saatchi's holdings of Hirst's early works), through Jay Jopling, reportedly for more than £8 million. Hirst had sold these pieces to Saatchi in
10640-797: Was at the Wallace Collection in London. In 2011, Damien Hirst designed the cover of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album I'm with You . Hirst's representation of the British Union Flag formed the arena centrepiece for the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London. In January 2013, Hirst became the third British artist to design the Brit Awards statue using his signature NEO-Pop art style inspired by his 2000 LSD "spot painting." In October 2014, Hirst exhibited big scale capsules, pills and medicines at
10752-487: Was effectively a lottery whether they would get work on any particular day. This arrangement continued until as late as 1965, although it was somewhat regularised after the creation of the National Dock Labour Scheme in 1947. The main dockland areas were originally low-lying marshes, mostly unsuitable for agriculture and lightly populated. With the establishment of the docks, the dock workers formed
10864-602: Was found to be closely based on a child's toy, legal proceedings led to an out-of-court settlement . Hirst was born Damien Steven Brennan in Bristol and grew up in Leeds with his Irish mother who worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau . He never met his father; his mother married his stepfather when Hirst was two, and the couple divorced 10 years later. His stepfather was reportedly a motor mechanic. His mother stated that she lost control of her son when he
10976-731: Was held in an unused shop on Woodstock Street in central London in 1991; already in 1989 he had been part of a group exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts , and the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Paris. The Serpentine Gallery presented the first survey of the new generation of artists with the exhibition Broken English , in part curated by Hirst. In 1991 Hirst met the up-and-coming art dealer, Jay Jopling , who then represented him. In 1991, Charles Saatchi had offered to fund whatever artwork Hirst wanted to make, and
11088-547: Was helping to make Hirst's vitrines) and Billee Sellman then curated two influential "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and Gambler , in a Bermondsey former factory they designated Building One. To stage Modern Medicine they raised £1,000 sponsorships from artworld figures including Charles Saatchi . Freedman has spoken openly about the self-fulfilling prophecy these sponsors helped to create, and also commented that not many people attended these early shows, including Freeze . In 1990, Henry Bond and Sarah Lucas organised
11200-543: Was his only successful educational subject. His art teacher at Allerton Grange School "pleaded" for Hirst to be allowed to enter the sixth form, where he took two A-levels, achieving an "E" grade in art. He was refused admission to Jacob Kramer College when he first applied, but attended the art school after a subsequent successful application to the Foundation Diploma course. He went to an exhibition of work by Francis Davison , staged by Julian Spalding at
11312-573: Was included in New Contemporaries show and in a group show at Kettle's Yard gallery in Cambridge . Seeking a gallery dealer, he first approached Karsten Schubert , but was turned down. Hirst, along with his friend Carl Freedman and Billee Sellman, curated two enterprising "warehouse" shows in 1990, Modern Medicine and Gambler , in a Bermondsey former Peek Freans biscuit factory they designated "Building One". Saatchi arrived at
11424-476: Was made for the love of anything but more zeroes. In December 2008, Hirst contacted the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) demanding action be taken over works containing images of his skull sculpture For the Love of God made by a 16-year-old graffiti artist, Cartrain , and sold on the internet gallery 100artworks.com. On the advice of his gallery, Cartrain handed over the artworks to DACS and forfeited
11536-529: Was not coined until 1994. It has become a historic term, as most of the YBAs were born in the mid-1960s. The core of the YBA group graduated from the Goldsmiths BA Fine Art degree course in the classes of 1987–90. Liam Gillick , Fiona Rae , Steve Park and Sarah Lucas , were graduates in the class of 1987. Ian Davenport , Michael Landy , Gary Hume , Anya Gallaccio , Lala Meredith-Vula , Henry Bond , Angela Bulloch , were graduates in
11648-625: Was opened. The Isle of Dogs branch was extended further south, and in 1999 it began serving Greenwich town centre—including the Cutty Sark museum— Deptford and finally Lewisham . In 2005, a new branch of the DLR opened from Canning Town to serve what used to be the eastern terminus of the North London Line , including a station at London City Airport . It was then further extended to Woolwich Arsenal in 2009. Further development projects are being proposed and put into practice within
11760-427: Was proposed, and similar development was already underway on Canary Wharf itself, Limehouse Studios being the most famous occupant. Canary Wharf was far from trouble-free; the property slump of the early 1990s halted further development for several years. Developers found themselves, for a time, saddled with property that they were unable to sell or let. The Docklands historically had poor transport connections. This
11872-482: Was publicly exhibited in a series of shows in a large converted paint factory building in St John's Wood, north London. Saatchi's Gallery inspired young artists to produce large concept artworks that would not fit in the usually small galleries in London at that time. Previous Saatchi Gallery shows had included such major figures as Warhol , Guston , Alex Katz , Serra , Kiefer , Polke , Richter and many more. In
11984-440: Was so horrible". He had met Joe Strummer (former lead singer of The Clash ) at Glastonbury in 1995, becoming good friends and going on annual family holidays with him. Just before Christmas 2002, Strummer died of a heart attack. This had a profound effect on Hirst, who said, "It was the first time I felt mortal". He subsequently devoted a lot of time to founding a charity, Strummerville , to help young musicians. In April 2003,
12096-460: Was the designation in 1982 of an enterprise zone , an area in which businesses were exempt from property taxes and had other incentives, including simplified planning and capital allowances. This made investing in the Docklands a significantly more attractive proposition and was instrumental in starting a property boom in the area. The LDDC was controversial; it was accused of favouring elitist luxury developments rather than affordable housing, and it
12208-508: Was the most important dealer of artists that were later called YBAs. Shortly after Freeze he exhibited Ian Davenport, Gary Hume , and Michael Landy in November 1988, who all exhibited in Freeze, in his gallery. In 1997, the Royal Academy staged an exhibition of the private art collection of Charles Saatchi titled Sensation , which included many works by YBA artists. The exhibition
12320-496: Was to be used to calibrate the probe's cameras after it had landed on Mars . He turned down the British Council 's invitation to be the UK's representative at the 1999 Venice Biennale because "it didn't feel right". He threatened to sue British Airways claiming a breach of copyright over an advert design with coloured spots for its low budget airline, Go . In 2000, Hirst's sculpture Hymn (which Saatchi had bought for
12432-405: Was unpopular with the local communities, who felt that their needs were not being addressed. Nonetheless, the LDDC was central to a remarkable transformation in the area, although how far it was in control of events is debatable. It was wound up in 1998 when control of the Docklands area was handed back to the respective local authorities. The massive development programme managed by the LDDC during
12544-421: Was young; he was arrested on two occasions for shoplifting. Hirst sees her as someone who would not tolerate rebellion: she cut up his bondage trousers and heated one of his Sex Pistols vinyl records on the cooker to turn it into a fruit bowl (or a plant pot). He says, "If she didn't like how I was dressed, she would quickly take me away from the bus stop". She did, though, encourage his liking for drawing, which
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