Damien Hirst at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in 2017

VENICE. The exhibition, which will open to the public on April 9th 2017, marks the first time in the museums’ history that the two Venetian venues of the Pinault Collection will be dedicated to a single artist. It is also the first major solo exhibition dedicated to Damien Hirst in Italy since the 2004 retrospective at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.

The exhibition is curated by Elena Geuna, curator of the monographic shows dedicated to Rudolf Stingel (2013) and Sigmar Polke (2016) presented at Palazzo Grassi.

Damien Hirst’s latest project has been ten years in the making. The Venice exhibition highlights the longstanding relationship shared by the artist and the Pinault Collection.

Photographed by Christoph Gerigk © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd.

A key artist for the Collection, Damien Hirst’s work has previously been exhibited at Palazzo Grassi, where it featured in the Palazzo’s 2006 inaugural exhibition “Where Are We Going?”. This group exhibition derived its title from the British artist’s steel and glass skeleton cabinet, Where Are We Going? Where Do We Come From? Is There a Reason? (2000–2004).

Damien Hirst also featured in “A Post-Pop selection” in 2007. In addition, the artist has appeared in major exhibitions of the Pinault Collection at the Conciergerie in Paris in 2013 (“A Triple Tour”), and at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco in 2014 (“Art Lovers”).

The 2017 exhibition is part of a calendar of monographic shows dedicated by Palazzo Grassi to major contemporary artists – Urs Fischer (2012), Rudolf Stingel (2013), Martial Raysse (2015) and Sigmar Polke (2016) – alternating with thematic exhibitions of works from the Pinault Collection.

Save the date / Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana

Friday 7 April 2017: Press preview
Saturday 8 April 2017: Vernissage
Sunday 9 April 2017: Public opening

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol and grew up in Leeds. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths college from 1986 to 1989, and whilst in his second year, he conceived and curated the group exhibition, ‘Freeze’. The show is commonly acknowledged to have been the launching point not only for Hirst, but for a generation of British artists.

Since the late 1980s, Hirst has used a varied practice of installation, sculpture, painting and drawing to explore the complex relationships between art, beauty, religion, science, life and death. Through work that includes the iconic shark in formaldehyde, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) and For the Love of God (2007), a platinum cast of a skull set with 8,601 flawless pavé-set diamonds, he investigates and challenges contemporary belief systems, and dissects the uncertainties at the heart of human experience. Hirst lives and works in London and Gloucester.

Since 1987, over 90 solo Damien Hirst exhibitions have taken place worldwide, and he has been included in over 300 group shows. In 2012, Tate Modern, London presented a major retrospective survey of Hirst’s work in conjunction with the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Hirst’s other solo exhibitions include Qatar Museums Authority, ALRIWAQ Doha (2013-2014); Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2010); Oceanographic Museum, Monaco (2010); Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008); Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2005); Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (2004), amongst others. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995.