Damien Hirst. Archaeology Now

Title: Damien Hirst. Archaeology Now

Opening: June 08, 2021

Ending: November 07, 2021

The Borghese Gallery until 7 November 2021 hosts a new exhibition by Damien Hirst curated by Anna Coliva and Mario Codognato: over 80 works from the Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable series are exhibited in all the rooms of the museum alongside the ancient masterpieces and include both monumental and small sculptures, made of materials such as bronze, Carrara marble and malachite. Hirst Color Space's paintings, in Italy for the first time, are also set up within the permanent collection, while his colossal sculpture, Hydra and Kali, is in the outer space of the Secret Garden of the Birdhouse.

The project was made possible thanks to the generous support of Prada, which investigates research fields such as art, architecture, philosophy, literature with the aim of developing innovative languages and projects, in a continuous dialogue with broader scenarios of contemporaneity.

Hirst's works are presented in the Borghese Gallery, a museum with a superb collection of masterpieces of classical Roman statuary, Italian Renaissance and 17th century painting, and the most important sculptures by Bernini and Canova. At the same time, and this is its uniqueness, it is a place that has a rich and original decoration made from a variety of materials and colors: marble, stucco, mosaics. Hirst's works complement the multiplicity of inventions and techniques present in the museum collection, showing the artist's incredible ability to combine concepts and narratives with the exceptional ability necessary to create these complex works, which has been a constant of this institution.

This project stems from one of Hirst's most original research in the last twenty years: Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable exhibited for the first time in Venice in 2017 at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. Here he had worked with different materials - natural, technological and precious - with exceptional technique and skill. Made of marble, bronze, coral, rock crystal, semi-precious stones and included among the masterpieces of the Gallery's collection, these works enhance the desire for multiformity of its founder, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. His fantasy had been to overcome categories, not only between the arts, but also between reality and fiction.

The exhibition also features a group of paintings from Hirst's 2016 series called Color Space, which is both a development of the Spot Paintings and a retelling of the first work of that series in which the spots were freely painted. Color Space sees the infiltration, in Hirst's words, of "human elements". These works are like "cells under a microscope". They break the idea of a unified image, they float in space, colliding and merging into each other, with a sense of movement that contradicts the stasis of the canvas.

Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, grew up in Leeds and from 1986 to 1989 studied fine arts at Goldsmiths College in London. In 1988 he designed and curated Freeze, a group exhibition that became the springboard not only for Hirst, but for an entire generation of young British artists. Since the late 1980s, he has created a vast series of installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings to explore the complex relationships between art, beauty, religion, science, life and death. With his works - including the iconic formaldehyde shark 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 studded with 8,601 pure diamonds - investigates and challenges the certainties of the contemporary world, and examines all the uncertainties inherent in the nature of man.

Since 1987, over 90 solo exhibitions have been organized around the world and he has participated in more than 300 group exhibitions. In 2012, London's Tate Modern presented a major retrospective of his work in conjunction with the Cultural Olympics. Hirst's solo exhibitions include, among others, the Qatar Museums Authority, ALRIWAQ Doha (2013-2014); Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (2010); the Oceanographic Museum, Munich (2010); the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008); the Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2005); the National Archaeological Museum, Naples (2004); Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice (2017). In 1995 he won the Turner Prize. He lives and works in London, Devon and Gloucestershire.

The exhibition catalog, published by Marsilio in Italian and English versions, presents critical texts by Anna Coliva, Mario Codognato, Geraldine Leardi and contains images of the exhibition in the museum.