ABOUT Damien Hirst

　He has always created sensational and controversial works of art. He is a leading figure in contemporary art and a British conceptual artist. In 1995, he was awarded the Turner Prize, the highest award for contemporary art in the United Kingdom.
　Among his representative works are a formalin-preserved cow and her calf, a spinning-machine painting, an enlarged ashtray filled with cigarette butts, a medicine chest filled with medicines and other found objects, and a platinum-cast human skull made of diamonds. These were created from his concepts of art and beauty, religion and philosophy, and the space between life and death.
　His style of working with found materials and assistants is associated with contemporaries such as Jeff Koons, who deliberately rejected the role of the artists hand.

　Damien Hirst "Mother and Child, Divided," a Turner Prize-winning work, appears at first glance to be nothing more than two brutal corpses cut in half. However, as one walks between the two works, the separation of the calf from the cow allows for a deeper reading of the work. If the image of the Venetian exhibition in which this work was presented is that of the Virgin and the Christ Child, it should not be the only cruel image.
　Also, in a work created before this one, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, in which a tiger shark is suspended and preserved in formalin, since its initial installation, it has been replaced by another Since its initial installation, it has been replaced by a different specimen of tiger shark due to inevitable decomposition. The image of death associated with the shark, and the specimen wearing out over time, makes us all aware of the inevitability of death.

　The "CHERRY BLOSSOMS" exhibition held at the National Art Center, Tokyo in 2022 filled the museum with many visitors, as if it were a substitute for cherry blossom viewing, which was made difficult by the Corona disaster. In contrast to his Spot Paintings series, in which he kept his self away from his works, mass-produced them, and reduced the act of painting as much as possible, the energy and persistence with which he has continued to paint cherry blossoms on a large scale alone is remarkable. The choice of the catchy motif of cherry blossoms and the act of visitors taking pictures in front of the paintings, all of which make it clear that he is an installation artist, is a fact that must be acknowledged. Also, the fact that the cherry blossoms themselves fall within 10 days to two weeks is also in keeping with his concept of the space between life and death.