The sun is shining in Beverly Hills and Hirst’s spots look great in the last Gagosian branch on my tour. I took a 7am flight from New York to get here and to keep costs low I’m heading straight back to the airport to catch a flight back to New York after I finish. Fortunately, after the surly Gagosian employees in New York, the staff here are a delight—smiling, chatty, friendly. They even give me a tour of the building and take me up to the roof terrace to see the Franz West sculptures and Jorge Pardo lanterns.
Then my card receives its final stamp and the challenge is complete. I am asked to fill in a form where I can choose the personalised inscription Damien Hirst will write on my very own limited-edition spot print. What can I write? I want to choose something Hirst might actually want to say to me. So after careful consideration I come up with something short and to the point: “Dear Cristina, Fuck off.” ... READ ON
10 February 2012
It’s a good thing I didn’t start the spot tour in New York because, if I had, I probably would have given up after the first gallery. Why is it that Gagosian staff here, in what must surely be the three most commercially successful galleries in the international franchise, are always so caustic? Even when they’re polite and (reluctantly) helpful, they can’t be bothered to look at you for longer than three seconds so that all conversations take place while they’re staring at their computers... What on earth are they doing that is so important? Are they in the middle of a multi-million dollar sale to Steve Cohen? It makes you want to bang your head against the counter. I am reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with one of Bill Gates’s art buyers. He had arrived at a Gagosian gallery in New York unannounced. Nobody knew who he was when he walked through the door. He was so put off by the snottiness of the staff that he left the gallery and never returned.... READ ON
08 February 2012
Whoever said money can’t buy you happiness has not travelled from London to Hong Kong and back again in economy class in two days. The flights were long, the children were loud and the movies were stupid—but this trip marks the final, most gruelling leg of my Hirst spot tour and nobody said it would be easy.
Hong Kong—gateway to China and promised land for European and American contemporary art dealers who are rushing to open galleries here. Gagosian arrived a year ago with a Damien Hirst blingfest, which was very high on expensive materials and very short on new ideas. There was a baby version of the diamond skull, gold cabinets filled with precious stones and countless canvases with diamonds stuck on them. It was a huge hit, says the Gagosian gallery staffer on call the day I visit, the gallery’s most popular and successful show to date in Hong Kong.... READ ON
06 February 2012
Removing pre-arranged seats from a flight unleashes the basest, darkest instincts of humankind. So to fly Easyjet, “Europe’s leading airline”, is not just to travel cheaply but also to be a voluntary participant in a psychological experiment akin to those carried out by the CIA in the 1950s. When the gates to the flight open, who will pause to help the weak and vulnerable? Who will race ahead trampling them cruelly underfoot in a bid to secure a coveted window or aisle seat?
To keep travel costs low—others may complete this spot challenge more quickly but nobody will do it more inexpensively—my travel today consists of not just one Easyjet flight, but two: the first from Rome to Athens and then, eight hours later, another from Athens back home to London. If the value of the spot print I get as a reward for completing this tour is inversely proportional to the luxury of my travel, then I’m in luck.... READ ON
24 January 2012
Rome. City of Genius. Home to Bernini, Borromini, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. Centre of the High Renaissance and then the Baroque. And now, thanks to the dynamic duo of Damien Hirst and Larry Gagosian, host to 18 paintings of spots in varying sizes.
10:15am finds me waiting outside the gallery in the heart of the city's historic centre a short walk from the Spanish Steps. As usual, I'm early and the guard posted on the door makes it clear in no uncertain terms I'm not getting in until opening time. No matter, it gives me occasion to admire the ornate colonnaded facade of the 1920s palazzo that Gagosian has chosen for his Italian outpost.... READ ON
20 January 2012
My journey today has been planned with military precision. There is no room for manoeuvre; no margin of error. I rely on French trains and Swiss efficiency to complete my task and make it from Paris to the Gagosian Gallery in Geneva and then to Rome (where I have a free place to stay) by Thursday evening.... READ ON
19 January 2012
The alarm goes off at 4am; just over an hour later I am boarding a train to Paris from St Pancras station. It's not fun getting up at this ungodly hour but at €39, the 5:40am train to Paris was the best deal I could find, so here I am. Today, my Damien Hirst spot tour begins in earnest.
Six hundred people have now registered to take part in the Gagosian challenge to visit all 11 galleries. How many will complete the trek? And how many will travel economy all the way?
8:55am: I sleep until we are approaching Paris. I obviously have Hirst on my mind because the first thing I observe when I wake up is that the rising sun looks like a giant Hirst spot on the horizon.... READ ON
18 January 2012
For Hirst, spots are happy things. He made the spot paintings, he says, in an attempt to create paintings “without angst”.
Not so for the other artist who has made a career out of painting spots, Yayoi Kusama. Kusama, who turns 83 this year, has chosen to spend most of her life living voluntarily in a Japanese psychiatric ward and has explained numerous times that she paints the visions that come to her in hallucinations.
Next month, her work is the subject of a major show at Tate Modern in London, which will run simultaneously with the museum’s upcoming Damien Hirst retrospective.
The two artists are more closely connected than we think, says museum director Chris Dercon, who recalls an interview Hirst conducted with Kusama in 1998 for a catalogue published to accompany an exhibition entitled “Yayoi Kusama: Now” at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York.... READ ON
16 January 2012
Three hundred people, including yours truly, have registered to take part in the Hirst spot challenge according to the Gagosian Gallery.
The artist, however, probably won’t be joining us on this mega-trek ‘round all 11 international outposts. The Indian press is today reporting that Damien Hirst may be attending the India Art Fair in Delhi, which takes place for a week at the end of January.
My own spot journey begins at Gagosian’s Britannia Street gallery at 10am this morning. I finish the registration process, pick up my challenge card, get it stamped by gallery staff, and then the viewing begins.... READ ON
12 January 2012
For the Chinese, 2012 is the year of the dragon but it is also, indisputably, the year of Damien Hirst.
He is Britain’s unofficial Olympic artist, having secured London’s most prestigious venue for contemporary art, Tate Modern, for an astounding five months starting in April (Gerhard Richter got just three). From tomorrow, all 11 Gagosian galleries around the world will be simultaneously showing Hirst’s spot paintings for five weeks.
Hirst has promised a limited edition, personalised spot print to anyone who visits all 11 venues in London, Paris, Geneva, Rome, Athens, New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. The question is: why would anyone need to? Aren’t the spot paintings basically all the same? Is the challenge itself an interactive conceptual work of art?
To answer these and other important questions, which may reveal themselves in due course, I have decided to accept the challenge and embark on the tour.... READ ON
11 January 2012
Cristina Ruiz
Over the next six weeks, Cristina Ruiz, our editor-at-large, has taken up the challenge to try to visit all 11 Gagosian galleries showing Damien Hirst’s spot paintings. Follow her as she blogs about her travels here.
BERNIE, BRIGHTON. UK:
The spot paintings are of no real signigficance. For instance, they are a bit like Wharhol's Brillo Pad boxes.
I can not understand
why you would jet around to see them. I assume you did it for fun
rather than as a pilgrimage. I suppose the reward print you have
will make an interesting conversation piece in years to come.
Regards Bernie
MELISSA GRIFFIN, BALLARAT AUSTRALIA:
Dear Cristina, I loved the way you made the seemingly impossible absolutely achievable. Inspiring stuff, well done!!
IN DEFENSE, LONDON:
As someone who interned at Gagosian, it's not really their fault they're unhelpful. The front of desk people aren't told anything! No prices, no buying information, no access to these things, no access to images.....
IVAN, LUGANO:
Dear Christina,
I may sound naive and silly, but this idea of visiting all DH exhibitions makes me only think about the waste of money and, worse, carbon dioxide useless contribution. What's the point. Those dots are to me already sort of depressing for they represent much of contemporary art, and its current decadence. Your trip efforts are a linear, consequent reaction to this status, but still, I can't help but feel uncomfortable with this Berlusconi-like attitude of quantity versus quality.
Best regards,
Ivan
DANNY NASH, LONDON:
Dear Christina, I love your informative and punchy reporting style and especially, your positive sense of humour! Love, Danny
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