a study of the guard Four formaldehyde sculptures created by Damien Hirst and dated to the 1990s have been alleged to have been created in 2017. In the first of two reports, published on March 19.an unidentified source says Hirst’s company, Science, “instructed employees to artificially age the sculptures, making them appear as if they were made in the 1990s.”
Science representatives have confirmed that the three aforementioned sculptures were physically made in 2017: the pigeon; Myth Explore, Explain, Explode; and Cain and Abel, Hirst dates them to 1999, 1993-99 and 1994, respectively. Earlier dates refer to when the works were created, rather than produced, they said. the guardand added that Hirst “has been clear for years when asked what is important in conceptual art; it is not the physical making of the object or the renewal of its parts, but the intention and idea behind the artwork”.
A fourth sculpture, Unknown (Investigate, Explain, Explode)1999 and now on display at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas, was also created in 2017, the guard complained in a separate report published today (March 22). “Sources familiar with the creation of the sculpture said it was made in 2017 in preparation for installation in the hotel,” he said. the guard. At the time of publication of this article, science had not yet confirmed this to be the case.
When asked about the timeline discrepancies, Hirst’s lawyers told him the guard “The dating of artworks, and especially conceptual artworks, is not controlled by an industry standard,” he added: “Artists have every right (and often are not) to be consistent in the dating of their works.”
The artist’s representatives also said the guard Attempts to prematurely age works in the artist’s workshop in Stroud, Gloucestershire, would be part of an ‘artistic process’. A spokesman for Hirst declined to comment further when contacted Art Newspaper.
“It stands to reason that to anyone who knows anything about formaldehyde works, none of the works from that series on display today will have original components from the 1990s,” says Jon Sharples, a partner at the London law firm Howard Kennedy. “Perhaps the most interesting question here is whether artists should make it clear which works have recently been physically realized for the first time and which have been revised.”
The museums and institutions that have shown the formaldehyde works in question confirm that their captions directly reflected the information provided by Hirst’s studio. A spokesman for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History made the exhibition Cain and Abel In 2021 and 2022, he said the guard that the organization “understood [1994] to be the creation date of Cain and Abel according to the artwork tagging convention.”
Representatives of the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art in Munich [MUCA]which is showing today Myth Explored, Explained, Explodedand the Gagosian gallery that represents the artist did not respond Art Newspaperrequests for comments. A spokesman for Gagosia told him the guard that he “discussed” the points made in the guard article, on the same basis established by Hirst’s group.
The the guard says it has “nowhere found that the works existed, in any form, prior to 2017” and notes “industry norms” that the dates placed on the captions accompanying the works were broadly understood to refer to a work’s production date. .
“It is not common practice in the art historical canon to date the artwork to the date it was considered finished,” says Angelina Giovani, director of research at Flynn & Giovani Art Provenance Research. “In cases where the start and end dates of a work of art are different, or there are doubts about its execution time, then, traditionally, a year interval is given.”
