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Tuesday 29 March 2022

Artlyst: Damien Hirst The Visceral Reality Of Death

My latest review for Artlyst is of Damien Hirst: Natural History at Gagosian Brittania Street:

'God Alone Knows, Our Father Who Art In Heaven, and The Incomplete Truth have been grouped to form a crucifixion tableau with the dove of the Spirit above the central crucified sheep while a shorn sheep clutching a rosary and the Book of Common Prayer between its hooves kneels in the place of the grieving Mary or John at the foot of the cross. Exhibited separately, these are works that have sometimes been called profane and which can be understood in relation to themes other than the strictly religious ... Grouped together, as is the case here, these works exhibit a greatly increased sense of the hope that Christians see in the violent sacrificial death of God. Hirst once said, to Sean O’Hagan, the afterlife is a ‘phenomenal idea’. However, for me, it is the poignancy of expression on these crucified creatures that reminds of the once-for-all nature of Christ’s sacrifice, the sense that our violent actions and intentions are shown to be self-defeating – a literal dead-end – because by scapegoating and crucifying the Son of God there is nowhere else that our violent natures can possibly take us.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

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Posted by Jonathan Evens at 22:08
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