Thursday, January 26, 2012

Spots Before My Eyes: An Open Ended Encounter with Damien Hirst


A visitor to Hypergraphia at the Flatiron observed, "there is the infinite variety of things, then there is an infinite variation of one thing. Your installation is the latter". I like that a lot! Infinite is out of my reach, but it is true that each time I draw or paint on a paper coffee cup - always the one shape and surface texture - a new image emerges.

 Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech
Homage to Damien Dot Cup - state 1
Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

This came back to me shortly after I entered Gagosian Gallery on 24th Street to look at the Damien Hirst Spotravaganza on view. At first it was just acres of spots, but as I wandered the huge galleries I noted with appreciation that no two canvases are alike. He too is engaged in the infinite variation of one thing, in this case grids of multicolored spots on pristine white canvas. Principally the colors and sizes of the spots vary, as do the sizes and shapes of the canvases, but within each group of shapes and sizes are further variations. I especially appreciated the different meta-patterns emerging from whites spaces between spots in a set of circular canvases in the rear gallery. 

The edges of paintings caught my eye also. Where the spots are huge and sit right at the edges, the canvases seem to bulge and contract. In another room a very long canvas contained the spots on three sides, but cut through all of them on the vertical - spots by the yard!

 Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech
Homage to Damien Dot Cup - state 2
Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

All of this was interesting enough to take me to the second Gagosian gallery on 21st street. When I walked in the door and saw the same display of large and small canvases, with the same tonal effects of highly pigmented spots on pristine white canvases I was suddenly filled with a feeling of exhaustion. But plunging in I enjoyed the extremes of scale - in some paintings the spots so tiny that I could barely make them out hanging next to one the length of a football field. I also made the fun discovery that when you stand close to the wall the spots turn into rows. 

Overall I have to say, I like the spot paintings to the extent that they remind me of those strips of candy dots on white paper that we used to buy as kids! Funny then that some of the spot studies shown in an accompanying book are actually arrays of venoms. Some candy strip that!

  Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech
Homage to Damien Dot Cup - state 3
Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

At this point, I would love to show you some photos of the spot painting shows, but the security guards said no cameras. I was tempted to photograph the Hirst gift shop through the window on 24th street, where a pile of Hirst coffee mugs was plainly to be seen on a plinth (a colored dot in the bottom of each), but respecting his intellectual property, I returned to the Flatiron window and drew a Damien Hirst homage spot cup and hung it up.

The color swatches on the white background looked all wrong hanging there. So I took it down again and considered. Would I leave all that negative space? Let Damien have it; I would follow the call of the fractal! Before long, a positive lace of smaller and smaller dots encased the cup, knitting it up until it found its proper place amongst the Hypergraphia cup drawings.  

 Cup of the Day #99 by Gwyneth Leech
Homage to Damien Dot Cup - finished state
Colored India ink on upcycled white paper cup

This is what I learned form the experience - painting free hand circles of color is hard! If my project of infinite variation involved that kind of pristine execution I would hire a stable of workers too. As it is, my approach has a lot to do with impulse, error and chance - of which there is an infinite amount in the world. It really is an open-ended proposition.

"And for that matter", said my husband, "so is a cup."


Good photos of Damien's spots at Gagosian can be seen on Blake Gopnik's Daily Pic.
And here is a posting of 10 spot reviews over on GalleristNY.

6 comments:

  1. your paintings are better than DHs believe me

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  2. I love the evolution of cup #99 - brilliant!

    And I agree with ArtChick1 ;)

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  3. Lucky you to be in New York and see all the fabulous art...love your homage to Mr. Hirst and his spots!

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  4. I really enjoyed this post Gwyneth--your visit and description of the Damien Hirst's canvases helped this West Coaster to better appreciate the phenom that his work has become--but honestly, I enjoyed even more cup #99, Homage to Damien Hirst. Fractals galore and hooray for impulse, chance and error--they are the stuff of which magic is made.

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  5. Mmmmm, I like yours much better. I guess I feel like Hirst's dots are kind of, well, art about art. It's designed to evoke comments about the nature of art. Your cups may evoke comments, but they are also enjoyable for what they are. I like to look at them. They are a pleasure. This is not something I can really say about Hirst's work, even though I respect the sheer scale of his dot project with Gagosian.

    Re "open-ended proposition": Thanks, David. You made me snort my coffee out my nose. Sheesh.

    Martha

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