達米恩·赫斯特

Gagosian Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner  

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is lighter and brighter in the original and the catalogue illustration fails to convey the iridescent nature of some of the butterflies. Condition: Please refer to the department for a professional condition report.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"They called me and said, 'Bacon's been in, he was here for about an hour.' I didn't really believe them but then here's this letter he wrote to Louis Le Brocquy, the Irish painter, where he says, 'I saw this Hirst fly piece and it really worked.' I still can't quite believe it."

Damien Hirst in conversation with Sean O’Hagan, The Guardian, 10 August 2008, online.

Masterfully fusing recurring symbols of life and death with his deep admiration for Francis Bacon, Power, After Power, After Power, That Cease Only in Death. is an exquisite example of Hirst’s butterfly triptych series. Originally conceived for his 2006 exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in London, where Hirst’s work was shown alongside a series of Bacon triptychs, these works are seen as a direct homage to Hirst’s hero. In the artist’s words, “I think as a child I got a fuck of a lot from Bacon… I think we all got a fuck of a lot from Bacon… If I run out of ideas it’s very easy to just look at a Bacon book and go, “Fucking hell” (Damien Hirst in conversation with Gordon Burn, in: Gordon Burn, On the Way to Work, London 2001, p. 180).

The respect was mutual. A few months before his death Bacon visited Charles Saatchi’s latest YBA exhibition and saw Hirst’s work. Later that week he wrote to a friend in praise of the young provocateur, specifically mentioning the vitrine piece A Thousand Years (1990). Jenny Blyth later told Hirst that Bacon had stood in front of the work for over an hour. Critics have always been keen to draw parallels between the two artists, observing their shared preoccupation with “states of distress, disorder and derangement” (Thomas Crow cited in: Exh. Cat. London, Tate Modern, Damien Hirst, 2012, p. 192). However, Hirst believes the appeal was rather simpler: “dead fucking flies… I understand why he could have liked it” (Damien Hirst in conversation with Gordon Burn, op. cit., p. 177).

An examination of our collective response to death has been a key element of Damien Hirst’s work since the very beginning. Some of Hirst’s earliest pieces, such as A Thousand Years or With Dead Head (1991), present viewers with extremely direct representations of death: the severed heads of a cow and a human respectively. In doing so, Hirst forces his viewers to confront not only the morbid interest generated by the sight of death, but its finality. Even the flies in A Thousand Years, which appear to profit from the death of the cow, are pursued by death. Their desperate breeding and feeding is punctuated by their intermittent electrocution by the insect-o-cutor suspended above the cow's head. Hirst had created a microcosmic life cycle; the flies and maggots could not survive were it not for the death of the cow whose head sustains them. Therein lay the fascination for Bacon – life, death and regeneration, a plastic realisation of his paintings.

Power, After Power, After Power, That Cease Only in Death. combines the symbol of the fly, which is reliant upon death to survive, with the butterfly, a symbol of regeneration, with the cocoon serving as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection in Christian iconography. The beauty of the butterfly even in death blurs the line between the two polarities. In Hirst’s words, “I’ve got an obsession with death, but I think it’s like a celebration of life rather than something morbid. You can’t have one without the other” (Damien Hirst in conversation with Gordon Burn, ibid., p. 21).

The dualistic nature of Power, After Power, After Power, That Cease Only in Death. invites meditation and contemplation. The flies radiate en masse from the bottom of the central panel, with the butterflies seemingly fleeing their influence – symbols of life and beauty resurrected from the flies’ death. Electric blues, bright yellows and reds contrast with the black dots of the flies, set against the extraordinary, Bacon-esque orange of the household gloss, reminiscent of the early triptych, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944). Combining symbols that have fascinated Hirst throughout his career to create a work of immense beauty and conceptual subtlety, Power, After Power, After Power, That Cease Only in Death. constitutes an homage to Bacon that incorporates all of the supreme inventiveness that has propelled Damien Hirst to international fame.