Ocula Report ‘An Opera for Animals’ at Rockbund Art Museum 19 Jul 2019 : Penny Liu for Ocula An Opera for Animals was first staged at Para Site in Hong Kong between 23 March and 2 June 2019, with works by over 48 artists and collectives that use opera as a metaphor for modes of contemporary, cross-disciplinary art-making. The exhibition's second iteration takes up a large portion of the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai (22 June–25...
Ocula Conversation Zoe Butt on the Challenges and Rewards of Curating Zoe Butt is the artistic director of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City, the first purpose-built space for contemporary art in Vietnam. Founded in March 2016, the Centre was designed by HTAP Architects in an old steel warehouse, with cargo shipping containers added to its structure. Initiated as a social enterprise...
Ocula Report Ocula 报告｜Condo Shanghai 2019 展览看点 11 Jul 2019 : Penny Liu for Ocula 即将于2019年7月13开幕的第二届 Condo Shanghai，联合上海7座画廊/艺术机构与14 家来自全球11个不同的城市，如东京、首尔、雅加达、巴尔的摩、洛杉矶、伦敦、纽约、危地马拉城、利马和墨西哥城，为实验性展览营造了一个更切实可行的国际环境。以下是Ocula的展览看点。周奥，《景观/对象WA》（2016）。橡木上固化油墨打印，左: 55.88 × 147.32 cm，中: 121.92 × 152.4 cm，右: 55.88 × 147.32 cm，图片提供：马凌画廊，上海。马凌画廊 × 80m2 Livia Benavides × LABOR × Proyectos Ultravioleta马凌画廊 |...
Damien Hirst is an internationally renowned contemporary artist. Hirst studied at Goldsmiths College, London and first gained recognition after curating the seminal show Freeze in 1988; the inaugural exhibition of the group of artists now known as the Young British Artists or YBAs. The exhibition established Hirst and his fellow students as among the most prominent artists of their generation.
Hirst works in a variety of media including installation, sculpture, painting, and drawing. Many of his works revolve around the central theme of death. Among his most notable works are The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark suspended in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and For the Love of God, a human skull completely encrusted in diamonds. Viewers of Hirst’s work are forced to confront their own fears surrounding mortality. His other enduring themes of religion, love, art, and science are also embodied in works equally challenging for which he has created his own motifs and vocabulary. Works range from cabinets of pills, spin paintings and works that use dead butterflies.
Damien Hirst was born in England where he continues to live and work. In 1995, he was the recipient of the Turner Prize. The first retrospective of Hirst’s work, The Agony and the Ecstasy, took place at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, in 2004. A later retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2012 recognized Hirst’s contributions to British art over the last three decades.
Hirst is also recognised as a disruptive player in the art world. This has involved consigning his own works to an auction house for a one vendor sale, to selling his own editions and multiples through a retail outlet called Other Criteria. Recently Hirst opened his own art gallery in London.
Hirst has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Tate Modern, London (2012); Musei di Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2010); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008); and Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2005). His work is held in major public and private collections around the world.
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Ocula Report A blended mass: A report from Art Basel 2016 24 Jun 2016 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula It was both a conservative and global year for the 47th Art Basel, as Scott Reyburn reported for The New York Times. Volatile markets—and politics—explained the wealth of historical pieces featured amongst more contemporary installations in Gianni Jetzer’s Unlimited section, this year with a record number of 88 works in total...
Related Press In Murakami’s Moscow, It’s All “Cuteness and Catastrophe” Vogue : 3 October 2017 In a 2000 interview with the Japanese photographer Mako Wakasa for the Journal of Contemporary Art, the artist Takashi Murakami presented the following rules for survival and success in the contemporary art market (best exemplified, he said, by Damien Hirst and the continued relevance of Picasso and Warhol): "First of all, distinctively...
Related Press Venice Notebook: Samplers From a Biennale Banquet The New York Times : 14 May 2017 The Biennale comprises a central exhibition, organized this year by Christine Macel, chief curator of the Pompidou Center in Paris; and 85 national pavilions, which feature solo or thematic presentations. Prizes are awarded to the best pavilion—this year it's Germany, which hosts a harrowing performance work by the young artist Anne...
Related Press Colossal Relics Aesthetica Magazine : 10 May 2017 The first major solo exhibition dedicated to the British artist Damien Hirst (b.1965) in Italy since his 2004 retrospective in Naples opens across the two Venetian venues of the Pinault Collection. Running concurrently to the Venice Biennale, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable is displayed across 5,000 square metres of the Palazzo Grassi,...
Related Press Last days to see 'Naturalia,' an homage to natural history, at Paul Kasmin Gallery Whitewall : 2 March 2017 Until March 4, you can wander between Paul Kasmin Gallery's two Chelsea locations, and through 600 years of natural history brought to life through woodcuts, sculptures, paintings, projections, dioramas, and time-lapse video. Curated by Danny Moynihan, Naturalia is a fresh take on art history.
Related Video & Audio Inside the Stately Home Exhibiting Damien Hirst’s Most Iconic Works AnOther Magazine : 15 May 2018 The notion of 'Britishness' has long been underpinned by a tangle of contradictions; evocative of both the aristocratic establishment, and its countercultural underside.
