On the Way to Work - Hardcover

Damien Hirst; Gordon Burn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789306646 ISBN 13: 9780789306647

Publisher: Universe Publishing, 2002

Synopsis

Damien Hirst is one of the most controversial, influential, and fascinating artists working today, and arguably the most famous. From the controversy of his early work to the political storm surrounding the arrival of the exhibition Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, his work has redefined international expectations of modern art. Even people with only a passing knowledge of art are familiar with his installations of a shark, cows, and sheep pickled in formaldehyde.

On the Way to Work is an extremely candid autobiography of Hirst presented in a series of conversations. He expounds in unpredictable and scabrously funny ways on everything from art to celebrity to sex, and these frank and intimate conversations are punctuated with art from all phases of his career chosen by Hirst himself. This book is a window into Hirst's world: growing up in working class northern England, roughhousing in pubs, obsessing about life and death, questioning art world fame, and believing that art and beauty make a difference in the modern world.

In addition to the attention he generates, this dynamic artist also garners critical acclaim-he is the winner of the Turner Prize and, ever since the groundbreaking exhibition that he organized as a fledgling artist in the early nineties, he is considered the unofficial leader of the Young British Artists movement. Hirst's appeal goes beyond the world of art; he's an influential figure to architects, designers, and the fashion crowd as well. Engaging, well-illustrated, and a real event in the art world, On the Way to Work, like its subject, will generate controversy and acclaim. Damien Hirst is one of the most controversial, influential, and fascinating artists working today, and arguably the most famous. From the controversy of his early work to the political storm surrounding the arrival of the exhibition Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, his work has redefined international expectations of modern art. Even people with only a passing knowledge of art are familiar with his installations of a shark, cows, and sheep pickled in formaldehyde.

On the Way to Work is an extremely candid autobiography of Hirst presented in a series of conversations. He expounds in unpredictable and scabrously funny ways on everything from art to celebrity to sex, and these frank and intimate conversations are punctuated with art from all phases of his career chosen by Hirst himself. This book is a window into Hirst's world: growing up in working class northern England, roughhousing in pubs, obsessing about life and death, questioning art world fame, and believing that art and beauty make a difference in the modern world.

In addition to the attention he generates, this dynamic artist also garners critical acclaim-he is the winner of the Turner Prize and, ever since the groundbreaking exhibition that he organized as a fledgling artist in the early nineties, he is considered the unofficial leader of the Young British Artists movement. Hirst's appeal goes beyond the world of art; he's an influential figure to architects, designers, and the fashion crowd as well. Engaging, well-illustrated, and a real event in the art world, On the Way to Work, like its subject, will generate controversy and acclaim.

About this title

Review:

Damien Hirst and his friend, the writer Gordon Burn, provide in On the Way to Work a fascinating window into the mind of one of the most successful artists of our day. The book, beautifully produced, illustrated and typeset, is a collection of interviews spanning the eve of Hirst's first major exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1991 to ones conducted late in 2000. While the book is certainly skewed towards the later years (one interview in January 1992, one in April 1996, three in 1999 and seven in 2000) the reader does get a broad overview of how Hirst's relationships to life, art and money have progressed. Hirst's fame, his spearheading of the YBA (Young British Artists) phenomenon and his subsequent exposure in the gossip columns with the well documented, and inevitable, drug and drink stories, are all fully covered here. But it is Hirst's profound artistic imagination and insight that best come over: his obsession with death--and with needing to prove his talent as a way to be immortalised in order to escape death--and his ambivalence towards art (the kind of ambivalence much of the public itself exhibits towards modern art) are key here. Also illuminating is Hirst's respect and admiration toward Francis Bacon and our discovery of his skill as a raconteur. If most visual artists show a disappointing inability to discuss their creations, Hirst at least shows an enviable ability to tell a divertingly good story.

Hirst, candidly, sees the art world as already always part of the work, and space, of art and it is a part he sometimes enjoys, sometimes struggles with and whose successes he has rightly benefited from. In 1996 Hirst displayed the body of cow cut up and suspended in 12 vitrines. The piece was called, "Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything": Hirst seems to have decided that the inevitablity of death, so futilely hidden by a society obsessed with youth and health, is the only truth or rather, perhaps, the only incisive fact the knowledge of which may help us to fully live now and eschew those lies in which we all swim and in which we are always in danger of drowning. On The Way to Work is an excellent book and much recommended to anyone who has been fascinated by the sudden rise in the visibility of modern art and what this has to say about society at the beginning of the 21st century. --Mark Thwaite

Review:

'I want it to be revealing. I'll talk about anything you like. I want it to be truthful. Let's do it. There is no off-limits. I'm afraid of nothing.'

About this edition

• Publisher: Universe Publishing
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0789306646
• ISBN 13: 9780789306647
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 232