‘I Used to Jump on Tables’: Anthony Haden-Guest Talks With Damien Hirst About Sobriety, His New Work and, Yes, Spot Paintings
‘When I first painted them it was this brand new thing and I felt immortal in a way. The time was right. We were… changing the rules, nothing could stop us. Now to see us, some of us look really fucking old. Worn.’
By Anthony Haden-Guest 1/12 12:51pm
Mr. Hirst at Gagosian on West 21st Street.
Anthony Haden-Guest first met Damien Hirst in New York in the early 1990s. Today, exhibitions of Mr. Hirst’s “Spot Paintings” open at all 11 Gagosian Galleries worldwide.
People are afraid of change, so you create a kind of belief for them through repetition. It’s like breathing. I’ve always been drawn to series and pairs. A unique thing is quite a frightening object. —Damien Hirst
Since emerging onto the international art scene in the late 1980s, Damien Hirst has created installations, sculptures, paintings, and drawings that examine the complex relationships between art and beauty, religion and science, and life and death. From serialized paintings of multicolored spots to animal specimens preserved in tanks of formaldehyde, his work challenges contemporary belief systems, tracing the uncertainties that lie at the heart of human experience.
In 1988, while studying at Goldsmiths College in London, Hirst curated Freeze, a rolling exhibition in three parts, featuring his work and that of fellow students. This show is considered the debut of the artists who would come to be known as the Young British Artists, or YBAs, whose approach was characterized by a combination of entrepreneurial and oppositional attitudes, the use of found materials, and an interest in shock and spectacle. In the final iteration of Freeze, Hirst included two of his Spot paintings, which he painted directly onto the wall. The Spot paintings (1986–), of which there are now more than one thousand, present multicolored spots on white or near-white grounds and are painted by hand in glossy house paint. With these works, Hirst sought to paint as a machine yet allow for the subtle imperfections of the artist’s hand. In 2012 Gagosian showed more than three hundred Spot paintings at once across all eleven of the gallery’s locations.
Like many of Hirst’s series, the Spot paintings evoke various psychological and perceptual dichotomies: they are both calming and unnerving, beautiful and ordinary. A subseries, the Pharmaceutical paintings (1986–2011), features evenly spaced, multicolored circles. The title links these works to the medicine cabinets (1988–2012) and Visual Candy paintings (1993–95), all of which consider the cultural role of prescription drugs, the ways they are advertised, and the many promises that are made to their consumers. The medicine cabinets are filled with the empty packaging of various medications, highlighting the minimalist aesthetic of the boxes and plastic containers. The Visual Candy paintings push the idea of false promises even further. Alluding to movements including Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop art, they are exuberant, colorful paintings with euphoric, perhaps facetious, titles such as Happy Happy Happy (1994), Wowee Zowee (1993), and Super Silly Fun (1993).
In 1991 Hirst created The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living: a fourteen-foot tiger shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde. This work, part of the Natural History series (1991–), has become a landmark of contemporary art and exemplifies Hirst’s interest in bridging the gap between art and science. The Natural History series includes additional taxidermy animals, including sheep, cows, a zebra, a dove, and even a “unicorn”—some of which are bisected or flayed. That same year, in London, Hirst presented In and Out of Love (White Paintings and Live Butterflies), an exhibition featuring real pupas glued to white canvases. The pupas hatched in the gallery, releasing live butterflies into the space. In 1997 Hirst collaborated on Pharmacy Restaurant and Bar in London, for which he designed the interior, transforming his work into an immersive environment.
Since the early 2000s Hirst has produced ambitious, captivating works ranging from the kaleidoscopic butterfly paintings (2001–08)—made by placing thousands of butterfly wings in intricate geometric patterns onto painted canvases—to For the Love of God (2007), a platinum cast of a human skull set with 8,601 diamonds. Hirst’s first major retrospective, The Agony and the Ecstasy, was presented by the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy, in 2004, and he was recognized in 2012 with a major retrospective at Tate Modern in London. While his 2017 exhibition Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable filled the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice with monumental, fantastical sculptures made of precious metals and stones, covered in illusionistic barnacles, Hirst subsequently returned to the gestural immediacy of painting with the Veil paintings (2017–18), in which he continued his examination of color and its effects on the eye.
In 2015 Hirst opened the Newport Street Gallery in London, a realization of his long-term ambition to share his art collection with the public.
September 2–5, 2026 COEX, Seoul Booth C10 www.frieze.com
Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in Frieze Seoul with a selection of paintings and sculptures by Damien Hirst, drawn from many of the artist’s most acclaimed series. The presentation follows Hirst’s celebrated exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, his first museum retrospective in Asia, which attracted more than half a million visitors.
Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in Art Basel 2026 with a multi-artist booth at the fair as well as historical works by Chris Burden and Ed Ruscha in the Unlimited sector. In addition, the presentation extends to Selections at the gallery’s space at Rheinsprung 1, a short walk from Messe Basel. Across these sites, Gagosian offers a grouping of outstanding works by twentieth- and twenty-first-century greats, reflecting the gallery’s consistent championing of innovative and influential creative practice through institutional-quality exhibitions and projects.
March 25–29, 2026 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Booth 1C18 artbasel.com
Gagosian is pleased to announce its participation in Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 with a presentation of paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper by a group of international artists. The works on view offer a complex variety of approaches to interrelated themes including aspects of abstraction and perspectives on the natural world.
Participating artists include Georg Baselitz, Amoako Boafo, Louise Bonnet, Carol Bove, Maurizio Cattelan, John Currin, Edmund de Waal, Jadé Fadojutimi, Urs Fischer, Helen Frankenthaler, Theaster Gates, Cy Gavin, Katharina Grosse, Jennifer Guidi, Lauren Halsey, Damien Hirst, Tetsuya Ishida, Alex Israel, Jia Aili, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Ewa Juszkiewicz, Rick Lowe, Henry Moore, Sabine Moritz, Takashi Murakami, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Penone, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Ed Ruscha, Jim Shaw, Rudolf Stingel, Tatiana Trouvé, James Turrell, Cy Twombly, Mary Weatherford, Stanley Whitney, Christopher Wool, and Zeng Fanzhi.
This exhibition presents thirty-two works from Damien Hirst’s never-before-shown series The Civilisation Paintings, which explores the necessity of hope despite the complexities and challenges of contemporary civilization. Each canvas depicts metropolitan areas set among thriving vegetation to form bright, imagined landscapes. Works from The Robot Paintings, which are created using machines that have been programmed to paint, are also on view. The Civilisation Paintings is curated by Connor Hirst and presented by HENI. For more information onthe works or Damien Hirst, please contact the gallery.
March 2–June 23, 2024 Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France chateau-la-coste.com
Damien Hirst takes over the entire estate at Château La Coste, filling its 500 acres and five exhibition pavilions, designed by world-renowned architects such as Oscar Niemeyer, Renzo Piano, and Richard Rogers, with sculptures and paintings from some of his most iconic series. The presentation also features work that has never been exhibited before, including The Empress Paintings, Cosmos Paintings, and sculptures from his Meteorites and Satellites series. A selection of outdoor sculptures are sited across the estate, including at Frank Gehry’s Music Pavilion and the Tadao Ando Art Centre, in addition to artwork inside the pavilions.
This exhibition features oil-on-canvas paintings from three series by Damien Hirst—Coast Paintings, Sea Paintings, and Seascapes—many of which have never before been seen publicly. The works are inspired by the artist’s pastime of walking on the beach and watching the sea, most recently in the United Kingdom during the winter, and draw influence from Abstract Expressionism, specifically Robert Motherwell’s Beside the Sea paintings from the 1960s. Where the Land Meets the Sea coincides with a drop on the HENI Primary digital platform. For more information on the works, please contact the gallery at inquire@gagosian.com.
This exhibition, whose subtitle translates to Pairings from the Collection, brings together works by thirty-nine artists from the Brandhorst Collection that have no art historical or formal relationship to each other. The pairs create a special tension precisely through their contrasts: they open up new spaces for thought, address our intuition, and evoke emotions. Sometimes touching, subtle, or funny, but always ambiguous, the combinations ignite a conversation about and between art. Work by Georg Baselitz, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Jim Shaw, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol is included.
Through November 1, 2026 Fundação Serralves, Porto, Portugal www.serralves.pt
Vexation of Spirit presents works from Count Christian Duerckheim’s collection—some of which were recently placed on long-term loan to Fundação Serralves—reflecting an artistic vision marked by moral unease and historical awareness. By focusing on the themes of religion, society, and war, the exhibition aims to stimulate debate, linking contemporary artistic creation with the transformations of history and the urgency of the present. Approximately ninety works by thirty-four artists are featured, including Georg Baselitz, Theaster Gates, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter.
October 25, 2025–August 23, 2026 Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris www.fondationcartier.com
Exposition générale brings together a selection of emblematic works and elements chosen from past exhibitions since Fondation Cartier’s creation in 1984. With nearly six hundred works by over a hundred artists, the show illustrates the foundation’s history and reveals the lively character of its collection while reactivating the social, cultural, and architectural heritage of its new space, a Haussmannian building on the rue de Rivoli that was redesigned by Jean Nouvel. Work by Richard Artschwager, Simon Hantaï, Damien Hirst, Giuseppe Penone, Patti Smith, Sarah Sze, James Turrell, Adriana Varejão, and Francesca Woodman is included.
October 25, 2025–February 22, 2026 Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, England www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
Turner: Always Contemporary marks 250 years since the birth of J. M. W. Turner and explores both the artist’s own work and his enduring impact on later generations of artists. The exhibition includes National Museums Liverpool’s collection of Turner’s oil paintings, works on paper, and prints alongside modern and contemporary artworks that delve into themes of travel, landscape, and artistic experimentation. Work by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons is included.
Now available
For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.Sydney Stutterheim meditates on the power and possibilities of small-format artworks throughout time.
In the Studio: Damien Hirst’s Veil PaintingsDamien Hirst speaks about his Veil paintings with Gagosian’s Alison McDonald. “I wanted to make paintings that were a celebration,” he says, “and that revealed something and obscured something at the same time.” 
Damien Hirst: Visual CandyJames Fox considers the origins of Damien Hirst’s Visual Candy paintings on the occasion of a recent exhibition of these early works in Hong Kong.
Damien Hirst: Colour Space PaintingsBlake Gopnik examines the artist’s “dot” paintings in relation to the history of representation in Western art, in which dabs of paint have served as fundamental units of depiction and markers of objective truth.
The River Café CookbookLondon’s River Café, a culinary mecca perched on a bend in the River Thames, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2018. To celebrate this milestone and the publication of her cookbook River Café London, cofounder Ruth Rogers sat down with Derek Blasberg to discuss the famed restaurant’s allure.
Visions of the Self: Jenny Saville on RembrandtJenny Saville reveals the process behind her new self-portrait, painted in response to Rembrandt’s masterpiece Self-Portrait with Two Circles.
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