For Damien Hirst, appearing in every social reel, being at the center of every debate and generally rolling off of the tongue of every art enthusiast in the world is nothing new, but this time Hirst just may have outdone himself.
On January 12, Damien Hirst will overtake every Gagosian gallery in the world with his striking "Spot" paintings. Hirst's plans to overtake the art world with his "Spot" paintings began nearly ten years ago when he discussed the project with executives at Tate Modern and Saatchi Gallery. Though that particular iteration of the concept never came to be, when Hirst brought the idea to Gagosian a few years ago, the international art dealer couldn't pass up on the opportunity.
More than six months of researching, cataloguing and arranging resulted in a 300-piece strong survey of Hirst's "Spot" series. Though the show itself is captivating enough in its entirety, the painstaking process of bringing the pieces together adds another layer that acts as a sort of map of Hirst's influence on the art world. Since the majority of the works exhibited with be on-loan from private collections, pieces will be shown at the closest gallery, revealing the aesthetic preferences of the region.
"A lot of the controlled substance paintings - the irregularly shaped canvases - are in Europe and London," Gagosian director Millicent Wilner told ARTINFO. "So those will be shown at the London gallery." Many of the circular spot canvasses ended up on the East Coast of the United States, so they will be shown at the New York gallery.
As customary with many high-profile artists, this particular series was made almost entirely by an assembly line of Hirst's assistants. Hirst provides some insight into how that plays into the concept behind the work. Of the series, Hirst said, it is "a battle between the machine made and man-made. From a distance they look machine made, and then on closer inspection you can see trace of the human hand, pencil lines, and [compass] holes."
View a brief interview with Hirst discussing some of his other work below .