DAMIEN HIRST (b. 1965) CANCER CHRONICLES (MAL

Provenance
PROVENANCE White Cube, LONDON

Exhibited
LONDON, White Cube, ROMANCE IN THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY, September 10-October 19, 2003

The CANCER CHRONICLES are Damien Hirst's powerful series of thirteen canvases that are covered with hundreds of thousands of flies trapped in an amber-like resin. Each canvas is named after a fatal human illness such as leprosy, cancer, smallpox and syphilis. Building upon his obsession with death, Hirst makes iconoclastic art recasting the fundamental questions concerning the meaning of life, the existence of God and death as the final limit, in paradoxically the most factual and unorthodox way. The paintings mirror a book of thirteen poems written by Hirst on the subjects of God, the death of the Saints, and the life of Jesus, which is also titled CANCER CHRONICLES. Each poem carries the title of one of Jesus' apostles and a poem entitled "Forsaken Jesus on the Cross in Conversation with His Dad (God)."

Upon viewing one of Hirst's works from CANCER CHRONICLES, a viewer is overwhelmed by the minimalist beauty and austerity of the seeming black velvety surface. However, when walking closer to the canvas, the viewer immediately notices that the surface undulations in the rich velvet are comprised of thousands of dead flies amassed together, and not layers of thick paint applied by the artist. The viewer is trapped in a situation of intrigue and repulsion; yet all the while not being able to disengage themselves with the painting. The initial gruesome reality of the viewer's immediate visual shock recedes behind the rich beauty of a scientific experiment and meditation on death. Hirst ultimately presents these flies as visual metaphors for the universal human behavior and condition. "I access people's worst fears," he has claimed. "I like the idea of a thing to describe a feeling" (Damien Hirst quoted in "Damien Hirst," FRIEZE, issue 1, 1991, p. 13). By amassing these dead flies and placing them on display, Hirst symbolically exposes the unseemly aspects of lived experience, the potentially messy nature of one's interior life, while also carrying religious associations, as the series of paintings number thirteen, the number of Jesus and his apostles. Ultimately, through his paintings of CANCER CHRONICLES Hirst seems to contain the unpredictable chaos of life and they become a reflection of the compulsive human desire to organize and control things which people fear the most.

FLIES THE MARTYRDOM OF SAINT JAMES THE GREATER TAKE YOUR PLACE IN THE MOUNTAIN OF MEAT, IN THE HISTORY OF MEN. LEFT OUT TO ROT – SUN HIGH, IN THE HEAT OF THE WAR TO END ALL WARS. THE CONTINUOUS WAR. THIS RIOT – THE FOOLISHNESS OF WAR IS THE END OF THE LINE FOR ALL. POETIC CREATURES, SOFT-BOILED EGGS SEEK SOLACE IN ROMANCE, IN A TIME OF WAR. DEATH, MARTYRDOM, SUICIDE, ASCENSION, TIMID HEROES RISE AND FALL IN THE SPHERE OF SHADOW AND DEATH. THEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, MEDICINE, JUSTICE, THE FOUR PILLARS OF THE ANCIENT EARTH LONG AGO COLLAPSED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF OUR STILLBORN CHARITY. NO TIME LEFT FOR ROMANTIC CHANGE. THIS IS THE AGE OF WAR. IT IS WAR THAT SURROUNDS US. COMPLETE DESTRUCTION, TREASON AND ENTROPIC CERTAINTY. THE COLLAPSE OF THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE. IN HIS INFINITE WISDOM THE FOOL LEFT THE LIGHTS ON WITH NO WITNESS LEFT TO WITNESS THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH. BLACK SHADOW ON PERFECT LANDSCAPE. A MINOR BLEMISH ON AN OTHERWISE PERFECT DAY. THE HOLY TRINITY REPLACED BY THE THREE STOOGES. BOILED ALIVE. BURNT TO DEATH. BORN DEAD.
Damien Hirst, THE CANCER CHRONICLES, LONDON, 2003, p. 9