Damien Hirst | 10 Questions | TIME

hi I'm Belinda Luscombe I'm an editor at large at Time magazine Damien Hirst is one of the world's most successful most famous and wealthiest artists he's currently filling eleven of Larry Gagosian galleries with paintings of spots and we're here to ask ten questions about that mr. Hearst welcome Hey hi so eleven galleries around the world filled with your spot paintings what about this idea interested you I was looking at Larry's gallery uptown and he has a on the wall always been has an exhibition he has every gallery that he owns with the different artists that are on there printed on the wall and when I first saw I thought I could do you know the only artist in the world probably is me and then the only body of work I could use is the spot to fill all the galleries so I guess it was just sort of perverted megalomania right here you have actually only painted five is that right of the spot painting is just actually looking around the show I think he's probably closer to 25 25 how far can you go with a whole kind of outsourcing idea of getting you know it's it's not like you're the only artist that does that it's familiar but could you take them to Sri Lanka could you train people and you know like like American corporation State well you know as an artist you've always got to believe that you can train anybody to make them because if you're harnessing other people's you know talents you know I mean I paint from the photographs as well very realistically and I've always been very careful to not hire somebody who's an absolutely brilliant painter in their own rights because then you kind of rely on their own talent whereas it's much better to just you know believe that anybody can do this you have to train them so you're saying you hire numbskulls somebody paint you something going you know sorry you are way too good you've got to be able to pick up a brush you got to speed up paint I think just basic skills you know you just work with people with basic skills a security guard over there asked me and what do the circles mean and I was like well I can actually find out for you if you say the red ones mean love the white ones mean purity the black ones mean death the blue ones are about the Blues the green ones are about jealousy are you making this up as you go or is this actually something you know in any kind of art it's like you know I'm a car you know words are not really well it's of adequate to describe it what does it mean to you you know it I suppose in a way that about like human urge to you know make order out of chaos or to make order out of the world you know it's like why we you know like a grid but really you know the things that we're trying to put into grids won't be put into grids really that's what the whole of human life is about I guess in the same way a lot of your work not the spots but it deals with sort of decay and death and squalor where does this come from where do you think well I've always have to go for both sides of the story really you know he said I want to make a butterfly painting I always think you know I don't want to be to seem to be too sappy so I'll do a fly painting just think I'm like God you know love is an amazing thing but children are being murdered in Africa as we speak you know it's like that's the world you know you've got these massive polarities and extremes all the time and I try and make art that reflects that you talk about having an impact on how your worst fear is to be forgotten or overlooked which is it's not gonna happen and in fact some of your work is being sort of incredibly controversial and discussed and one of them I guess is the skull I believe I see we're wearing a lot of skulls today love of God yeah which is the diamond-encrusted platinum skull and there is a sort of showmanship to that that is sort of reminiscent people have said to me of the kind of thing you see on say on television today in say shows like pimp my ride or Cake Boss you probably have them in England where yeah where people are making these sort of amazing creation oh I wondered where you saw the division well I think you know I mean I think anything done well really is you know super well is our I mean I don't believe in God I think you know my belief in our is kind of it religious you know I always think it's like a mathematical subway you you know miraculously make one plus one equal three you can do something like a diamond school and it can be it can be one plus one equals two and that's not good enough or it can be one plus one equals one you know and you can wish you never did it and it never comes out of the studio but you know with the diamond school I think is our T's make from what's around them we've just had you know with all these boom times and everybody buying art and loads of money I mean my wildest dreams I mean I'd love money when I was a kid so to be in that situation it was kind of nuts and really the diamond schools the only thing I could come up with to make you know kind of scared the hell out of me dawned on me that you know I was in the position of Emperor's and Kings you know he spent millions on fabricating something you know I'm gonna hate to say I think it's probably it's a lot harder for artists to make money to make art when you've have money really I was gonna ask about that yeah it's funny it's funny that looks I hate the idea of the van Gogh starving artist as you know I think you know money should always be a key and not a motivating factor something to enable you rather than something to drive you you know it's very complicated I think money is complicated is love this is from the man who's worth conservatively 300 million dollars right now spread it pounds oh you don't know well there are many changes you know worth is like you know what you know I've got you know I'm okay i'm sure i mean i don't speak it's my accountant about my kids recently and he said don't worry about the kids and I was like but you know you can't you know if you just don't you if you take you don't have that kind of background if you're not born into money you always worry you know you can't help it so you're not gonna Bowl pocket for me three hundred million dollars dollars pounds maybe pounds or dollars that's always good isn't it the pounds don't switch yeah it's kind of the same thing really good these days yeah depends if you've got to sell everything in a fire stay at sales you know mr. Hearst thanks very much thank you you

Channel: TIME

Views: 150,071

Keywords: spot paintings, Art, Controversy, diamond skull, youtube, Damien Hirst, Bus, Falling, Session, Sleep, SleepingTime, time magazine, magazine, time (magazine), time.com, news today, world news, interview, science, technology, health, politics, entertainment, business, news, breaking news, live, lifestyle, video

Id: Zq7WkSuTcrs

Length: 5min 53sec (353 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 03 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/the_brazilian_lucas]

this man is really out here making money with the twister mat

[u/thelightsfromourlove]

I’m happy you posted cause hearing him talk about these pieces on his IG is what made me start to like the cover lmao

[u/FranklinCedar]

I have 2 circle paintings I'll sell him

http://imgur.com/gallery/mZHkC0e

[u/apyrdotmp3]

Interesting.

What do you think it means as a CLB art?