From 2 March until 23 June 2024, Damien Hirst will stage a major exhibition at Château La Coste. Titled The Light That Shines, the presentation will feature sculptures and paintings, including some of Hirst’s most iconic series and some which have never been seen before.
Throughout his prolific career, Hirst has reflected on the relationships between beauty, religion, science, life, and death. He is perhaps best known for his works employing formaldehyde, which he began in the early nineties. Key pieces from this series, titled ‘Natural History’, will go on view in the Renzo Piano Pavilion.
The butterfly is another iconic motif which the artist has continually interacted with as a means of exploring these themes. In the Richard Rogers Gallery, and exhibited for the first time, ‘The Empress Paintings’ use red and black butterfly wings arranged into mesmerising kaleidoscopic-like patterns and are named after powerful female rulers from history.
‘Cosmos Paintings’ and sculptures from the ‘Meteorites’ and ‘Satellites’ series will also be shown for the first time, in the Old Wine Store Gallery designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte. After making the diamond skull For the Love of God, and putting a Spot painting on Mars, Hirst started to think about making a show that was not on earth. Inspired by the Hubble Space Telescope’s long-exposure images of a dark corner of the sky which revealed billions of stars, he painted canvases black and fixed them to the floor of his studio to overlay with paint. This floor became the ‘Cosmos Paintings’. ‘Satellites’ in bronze capture nostalgia and are loosely based on Degas’ bronze casts of his waxes, with Hirst using a Victorian type on their metal information labels to make them look both new and old.
In the Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium, sculptures and lightboxes from ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’, a series of works that was first shown in 2017 across Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi in Venice, will be exhibited.
The artist will also showcase his most recent series, ‘The Secret Gardens Paintings’, in the Bastide Gallery. Depicting vibrantly coloured flowers, the canvases feature an abstract layer of bright paint splatters.
Main Image :Damien Hirst Photography by Prudence Cuming Associates © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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