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© Damien Hirst
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Damien Hirst has said 'Art's about life,
and it can't really be anything else'. In a series of
memorable works, often involving provocative materials such as flies,
dead animals and formaldehyde, Hirst has made uncompromising statements
about the transience of life.
In this room installation, he recreates the clinical atmosphere
of a pharmacy. Hirst views medicine as a powerful belief system:
we are seduced by drugs, believing they will cure all ills and preserve
life, though rarely questioning their side-effects. Growing up in
Leeds, he remembers going into a chemist's with his mother and wondering
why she could put her faith in drugs, yet had no faith in art. Hirst
explains: 'I like the way art works, the
way it brightens people's lives up…but I was having difficulty
convincing the people around me that it was worth believing in.
And then I noticed that they were believing in medicine in exactly
the same way that I wanted them to believe in art.'
The pharmacy, with its cool white shelves of classified bottles
and boxes, seems to be a model of minimalist order, banishing fears
of death and decay. However, the bowls of honeycomb placed on stools,
and the insect-o-cutor hanging from the ceiling are a reminder of
mortality. The honey potentially attracts flies, only to lure them
on to a quick and brutal death. In a similar way, medicine promises
much but can only stave off the inevitable end. As Hirst puts it:
'We all die, so this kind of big happy,
smiling, minimal, colourful, confident facade that medicine and
drug companies put up is not flawless - your body lets you down,
but people want to believe in some kind of immortality.'
This text is taken from the display at Tate Modern.
Collection Displays in association with BT
 Audio Extract from a conversation between Damien Hirst and writer Gordon Burn
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