Damien Hirst

Artist's studio

White Cube Gallery, London

Collection of Marisa Perret-Rezzonico, Geneva (acquired from the above in 1994)

Robert Violette, Ed., I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, With Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, Section 16, Product Identification Section 1991-1996, 1997, p. 236, ill. in color

Jason Beard and Millicent Wilner, Eds., Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings: 1986-2011, London, 2013, p. 81, ill. in color

Damien Hirst’s Arbutin (Hydroquinone b-D-glucopyranoside), 1994, is part of the emblematic Spot paintings series. Hirst estimates he produced around 1400 spot paintings since the genesis of this geometrical format in 1988. In the 1990’s, he set the basis for an endless series of works as grids, easily repeated and reproduced, removing the artist’s own hand. Hirst started at this date to let his assistants execute the works. Marking a turning point in his career, these were Hirst’s first steps into the world of art as “fabrication” – a divisive artistic method explored by American Pop Artists. Later in the 1990s, Hirst’s Spot paintings would merge to a recurrent theme to the artist: drugs. The work has been created while Hirst’s Spot paintings reached their momentum. With the help of his assistants, and looking back to the production of his Spot paintings’ production, Hirst commented that “At the very beginning of my spot painting career I made some messy spots and I hated them, so I perfected them into perfect dots. For 25 years I made perfect dots.”