A few words about the artist

Damien Hirst is an artist in his fifties who dominated British art in the 90s for his membership of Young British Artists. This organization was set up in the late '80s to bring together contemporary artists from all over Britain.

 After studying at Goldsmith's College of Art, Damien Hirst began his artistic career as a sculptor and curator. His early work dealt with the relationship between art, life and death. His experience of working in a morgue helped him to place this theme at the heart of his work. Wishing his " art to be more real than a painting ", he produced his famous series of animal corpses, including pigs, cows, sheep and tiger sharks. These animals are placed in life-size aquariums and can be cut into several pieces, sometimes revealing organs. As if to send a message, these sculptures are destined to disappear, because although they are preserved in formaldehyde, the animals are in the process of decomposing.  

In 2007, Damien Hirst's work took another interesting turn. Remaining in the realm of death, he set a new record by creating a $100 million piece. His folly was to create a platinum replica of a man's skull, encrusted with 8,601 diamonds, entitled For the Love of God.

He then turned his attention to more colorful works with the first Spot Paintings, depicting various colored dots lined up in a row. He followed this with the equally colorful Visual Candy series, the Colour Space series and, more recently, the Veil Paintings series.

Cherry blossoms

Damien Hirst then devoted three whole years to a series of 107 very large canvases called Cherry Blossoms. They are divided into single panels, diptychs, triptychs, quadriptychs and a hexaptych. It's a very colorful and joyful universe that the artist offers us, in contrast to what he has been able to share with us before. This collection will be on show at the Fondation Cartier from June 1, 2021 to January 2, 2022.

"The Cherry Blossoms are about beauty, life and death. They are excessive, almost vulgar. [...] They are ornamental but painted from nature. [...] The Cherry Blossoms are flashy, messy and fragile, and thanks to them, I have moved away from minimalism to return with enthusiasm to the spontaneity of the pictorial gesture."

- Damien Hirst

 These projections of paint may refer to the Impressionist movement, but also to Pointillism and action painting, like his previous series. At once bewitching and exotic, these brightly-colored canvases invite us to dream. We truly feel as if we're strolling through Japanese gardens.

 The artist likes to start a work, put it aside and come back to it later. The pandemic gave him the opportunity to live with his works, to watch them age and to put the finishing touches to make them perfect to his taste.

"The pandemic allowed me to live with my paintings and take the time to contemplate them until I was sure they were all finished."

- Damien Hirst

With this situation, we've tended to neglect culture. But it's still there. It hibernates before blossoming again, like Damien Hirst's spring series. This colorful exhibition of thick brushstrokes and splashes of paint fills us with gaiety. These are feel-good works that we really enjoyed discovering and wanted to share with you. Of course, we'll have to wait a little longer before we can see them in person. In the meantime, you can go for a stroll and admire real cherry blossom trees all around you in parks and especially in Paris: in the Jardin des Plantes, in the Square Jean XXIII near Notre-Dame, in the Père Lachaise cemetery, in the Parc des Batignolles, in the Bois de Boulogne park or near the Eiffel Tower, for example.

"They speak of desire, the way we perceive the things around us and what we do with them, but also evoke the incredible and ephemeral beauty of a tree in bloom in a cloudless sky. I loved working on these canvases, losing myself entirely in the color and material in the studio."

- Damien Hirst

Practical info:
Exhibition from June 1, 2021 to January 2, 2022.
Admission fee
Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
261 boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris

Access:
By metro
Lines 4 or 6 - Station Raspail or Denfert-Rochereau
By bus
Lines 38, 68, 88 or 91
By RER
Station Denfert-Rochereau

A summer exhibition to welcome spring!