damien hirst at the Portland Art Museum

Hirst Autopsy With Sliced Human Brain, 2004.

Among the most celebrated artists of his generation, Damien Hirst has evolved a fresh and challenging attitude and approach to the production and exhibition of contemporary art. A media icon and household name because of his infamous shark in a tank of formaldehyde sculpture, Hirst is widely seen as the legitimate heir to Marcel Duchamp. Recipient of the prestigious Tate Gallery Turner Prize in 1995, Hirst’s work tackles the big subjects of art—love, desire, life, and death—with irony, wit, and complex references to science and culture.

The exhibition presents four works that represent major forms within Hirst’s practice: minimalist abstraction, hyperrealism, commercial product, and natural science specimen, suggesting a continuing involvement with post-modern tropes of representation and how he questions art’s role in contemporary culture and our relationship to the forces of change.

More here.