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拍品专文
Executed in 1997, the year that Damien Hirst and the Young British Artists (YBAs) cemented their stellar rise with the ground-breaking “Sensation” exhibition at London’s Royal Academy, 1-Chloro-2, 4 -Dinitrobenzene is from one of Contemporary art’s most iconic series of paintings. The effect of this exceptional spot painting is visually gratifying, vibrant and uplifting, while also being ingeniously original. In an oeuvre that has consistently interrogated fundamental belief systems, Hirst’s spot paintings are characteristic of his ability to challenge long-held artistic conventions. "I wanted to find a way to use color in paintings that wasn't expressionism,” he has said. “I was taught by painters who believed that as an artist you paint how you feel and I believed in that for a long time. And then I lost faith in it and wanted to create a system where whatever decisions you make within a painting, the paintings end up happy. And I came up with spot paintings" (D. Hirst, quoted in J. Riefe, “A minute with Damien Hirst on Hitting the ‘spot,’” Reuters, January 11, 2012.)
Hirst made his first spot painting in 1986, and included two in Freeze (1988), the exhibition organized and curated by Hirst which was pivotal in the genesis of the YBAs. In 1991, he made the first spot painting on canvas, having previously painted them directly onto walls. 1-Chloro-2, 4 -Dinitrobenzene forms part of the ‘Pharmaceutical’ series of spot paintings made between 1986 and 2011. Each painting in the series follows the same guidelines: each spot must be hand-painted in household gloss, and while the dimensions of the spots might vary, the gaps between them must be the same dimension of the spots themselves. Yet despite the strictness of the format, the colors defy expectations by refusing to fall into a pattern.
This scientific approach to painting is demonstrated also in Hirst’s method of titling them after the medicine listed in a pharmaceutical company catalogue. The artist’s fascination with drug companies stemmed from a desire to “convince the people around me that [art] was worth believing in. And then I noticed that they were believing in medicine in exactly the same way that I wanted them to believe in art” (D. Hirst, “Explore Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy,” online [accessed: 4/8/2025]). It was an important realisation, eventually leading Hirst to think of painting almost like “sculptures of paintings,” he has said. The methodical rigor he went on to devise was intended to echo the “drug companies’ scientific approach to life,” he has said. “Art doesn’t purport to have all the answers; the drug companies do. Hence the title of the series, the Pharmaceutical Paintings, and the individual titles of the paintings themselves... Art is like medicine, it can heal. Yet I’ve always been amazed at how many people believe in medicine but don’t believe in art, without questioning either.”’ (D. Hirst, quoted in D. Hirst, I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now, London 1997, p. 246).
Hirst made his first spot painting in 1986, and included two in Freeze (1988), the exhibition organized and curated by Hirst which was pivotal in the genesis of the YBAs. In 1991, he made the first spot painting on canvas, having previously painted them directly onto walls. 1-Chloro-2, 4 -Dinitrobenzene forms part of the ‘Pharmaceutical’ series of spot paintings made between 1986 and 2011. Each painting in the series follows the same guidelines: each spot must be hand-painted in household gloss, and while the dimensions of the spots might vary, the gaps between them must be the same dimension of the spots themselves. Yet despite the strictness of the format, the colors defy expectations by refusing to fall into a pattern.
This scientific approach to painting is demonstrated also in Hirst’s method of titling them after the medicine listed in a pharmaceutical company catalogue. The artist’s fascination with drug companies stemmed from a desire to “convince the people around me that [art] was worth believing in. And then I noticed that they were believing in medicine in exactly the same way that I wanted them to believe in art” (D. Hirst, “Explore Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy,” online [accessed: 4/8/2025]). It was an important realisation, eventually leading Hirst to think of painting almost like “sculptures of paintings,” he has said. The methodical rigor he went on to devise was intended to echo the “drug companies’ scientific approach to life,” he has said. “Art doesn’t purport to have all the answers; the drug companies do. Hence the title of the series, the Pharmaceutical Paintings, and the individual titles of the paintings themselves... Art is like medicine, it can heal. Yet I’ve always been amazed at how many people believe in medicine but don’t believe in art, without questioning either.”’ (D. Hirst, quoted in D. Hirst, I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now, London 1997, p. 246).