Damien Hirst

Acquired directly from the artist

Damien Hirst & Robert Violette, Eds., I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London 1997, p. 236, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is some evidence of extremely light wear in places around the extreme edges. On close examination a few light handling marks are visible around the edges and there is a light drip mark 10cm approx extending down from between the green and red spots in the top right quadrant. There is a further unobtrusive pale media accretion towards the bottom of the right edge. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no evidence of retouching.
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In a collaborative performance piece in 1993 at the art event "Fete Worse Than Death" in Hoxton Square, Damien Hirst and Angus Fairhurst dressed up as clowns to create spin paintings for the crowd. The infamous fashionista and performance artist Leigh Bowery happily helped with their makeup, which several drunken hours later resulted in full multi-coloured body paint which they charged curious on-lookers to see. Hirst later gifted the present work Arabic Acid to Bowery to thank him for his contributions that day.

Bowery became known as one of the most innovative and challenging performance artists of recent times. His use of his body as both the motif and motive of his art, along with his energetic flare and fierce individuality, was praised and admired by his contemporaries amongst whom were Boy George, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Damien Hirst. After an all-out performance at Anthony d'Offay's Gallery in 1988, Bowery became a favourite muse of Lucien Freud, posing regularly for him over a number of years. Leigh Bowery (Seated) of 1990 is the first major painting of Bowery by Freud; his nude stance was in itself another self-revealing performance. Somewhat of an enigma, Bowery mesmerised and inspired all who knew him and continued to do so even after his untimely death in 1994. Bowery's work went beyond a gallery or stage and was unconnected to any single fashion or trend. He shared with Hirst and many of the musicians, performers and contemporary artists of his time, an unashamed desire for the exploration of new forms of expression.

Arabic Acid of 1993 is a very early example from Damien Hirst's celebrated series "The Pharmaceutical Paintings".  Hirst stated "I started them as an endless series [..] a scientific approach to painting in a similar way to the drug companies' scientific approach to life. Art doesn't purport to have all the answers; the drug companies do. Hence the title of the series (Damien Hirst cited in: I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 1997, p. 246) Titling all his works of this series after various medical compounds, he explains, "Art is like medicine – it can heal. Yet I've always been amazed at how many people believe in medicine and don't believe in art, without questioning either." (Damien Hirst cited in Ibid.) Hirst breaks down these complex chemical structures into a compressed simplistic vision. Comprised of five rows and five columns of uniquely coloured spots, the iconography is the simple schema of geometric logic. The system simultaneously creates and disrupts harmony, serving as a metaphor for the futility of the compulsive human desire to organise, classify and control things we fear the most in our bid to evade mortality. Self-restricted by a grid, the only variation is the colour and tone of the spots, which, according to the formula, must remain equidistant from one another. The viewer's roaming focus is desperate to establish order within the confined space. With this painting, a soft medley of colours is arranged; the strict organisation of the dots competes with the rhythms of their variations, encouraging the eye to find patterns. By positing the spectator as unwitting participant in Humanity's global paranoia of death, Hirst implicates the irresistible attraction of life-giving inherent to modern science.