[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][rdy_button text=”View the exhibition” align=”left” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″ background=”#000000″ background_hover=”#fbc817″ text_color_hover=”#000000″ border_radius=”0″ link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.civitart.cat%2Fen%2Fexhibitions%2Fthe-last-supper-damien-hirst%2F|title:%5B%3Aca%5DExposici%C3%B3%20Cartografies%201%5B%3A%5D||”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Last Supper<\/i>, by Damien Hirst, is one the most important pieces in the collection of Josep M. Civit. It is also one of the pieces that best explains his poetics: a specific trinity between art, the communicator who poses questions, makes selections and exhibits the entire result, and, finally, the exhibition visitor. This piece, unlike what we find in practical communication, requires \u201cvisible\u201d meaning to be revealed, since it represents an authentic reversal in the relationships expressed by equations such as communication = truth, religion = faith and science = objective rationality. In reality, the piece deals with a displacement of meanings, using minimalist treatment to achieve maximum content: that is, an industrial production for a verbal mental game. Nothing is simply what we see, but rather the meaning we must cull from it.<\/p>\n
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Displacing Meaning: From Visual Order to the Mind<\/b><\/p>\n
Our public finds itself with a piece that apparently reproduces in large format a collection of medicine packages, with their characteristically clear and functional typography, the hierarchical layout of blocs of textual information, the framing of certain content with colour blocs and the trademark of the pharmaceutical laboratory that is its stamp of approval.<\/p>\n
When we shift, however, from visual identification to semantic reading, we immediately realise we are mistaken. As we read, we discover (quite paradoxically) that they are not pharmaceutical products, but everyday food items eaten on a mass scale, and are easy for people to find in major cities: steak, chicken, omelette, mushrooms, beans and chips, onions, meatballs, beef, salad, dumplings, sausages, sandwich, Cornish pasty. Beside each product we have the weight of the box and the number of pills. After this we see the active ingredients of each medicine, an essential detail for all pharmaceutical products. Finally, we see the manufacturer\u2019s name displayed, which in each case is simply a variation made from the artist\u2019s name, turned into a brand logo: sometimes its \u201cDamien\u201d, others just \u201cHirst\u201d, or both in that order or reversed, together or separated, using various type fonts in rounded, italics and upper or lower case, amongst other options.<\/p>\n
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Displacement from Religious Dogma to Avant-Garde Art<\/b><\/p>\n
Semantic displacement is implicit to religion, constituted as it is by dogmatic principles. Included amongst acts of faith are healing miracles, yet surely the most significant of all is the conversion of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Son of God. Above all others, one provides definitive proof: the resurrection of Christ\u2019s dead body. Amongst Catholic dogmas, transubstantiation is repeatable, as a daily practice; it is the dogma that is closest to a familiar form of magic. In the early 20th century the nihilist dada artist Marcel Duchamp presented a urinal in a sculpture exhibition, as if it were a water fountain. Ever since this gesture, art has replaced religion in the act of affirming mysteries with no practical grounding. The artist takes the place of the priest who formerly officiated the ceremony. The work of art, therefore, makes it possible to give new meaning to forms that are commonly accepted on the basis of their functionality. This is what Hirst\u2019s piece ends up doing.<\/p>\n
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From Multiplication to the Reproduction of the Artistic Object\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
Art, so we are told, loses its aura when it is no longer a unique object, when it ventures into the process of reproducibility, as has happened with photography and mass culture. In this case, the piece is a silkscreen edition using a process somewhere between craft and industry, so that despite the limited edition the work can be found simultaneously at the Tate and in the Civit Collection. The silkscreen technique, which is quite common in the presentation of designer brands, has an accentuated level of chromatic efficacy, given that the solid tones cover over any stain without being transparent; it was Warhol\u2019s preferred technique, even when he was doing unique pieces that did not go into an edition.<\/p>\n
The Pop character of the piece obligatorily goes along with this verbal displacement we have referred to. Hermetic Duchamp (the mute) is followed by Warhol (in Pop), and the signature of Mutt as Duchamp\u2019s heteronym has been enhanced by Warhol\u2019s universality, and now, amongst current artists, the Hirst brand. We are dealing with a devil of an artist.<\/p>\n
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Inexpressive Scientific Hygiene Substituting Artistic Expressionism and Ugliness<\/b><\/p>\n
In effect, linguistic transgression is religious blasphemy, since it uses the name of the artist in vain. Hirst is the new God, one of the highest paid artists in the world. Could it be that the artist and his ruse have raised popular food to the level of a health question, posed in opposition to the pharmaceutical industry? The artist Damien Hirst had been a member of a generation of younger English artists at the end of the 20th century\u2014the Young British Artists, promoted by advertising mogul Saatchi\u2014that scandalised the world of art with proposals typified by a heightened degree of expressivity. He made his name in the 1980s by floating desiccated animals in glass cases full of formaldehyde, thus altering the volume of a naturalised animal-sculpture. The employment of a scientific space gave his works the feel of pieces in a science museum, objectified, hygienic truths contrasting with the expressionist ugliness of the pictorial avant-garde. Other colour cards, done with prescription pills, charged the art through the personalised sensibility of colour.<\/p>\n
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When after the Second World War the United States of America developed a programme of economic support for Europe, torn apart and in ruins, they also introduced industrial processes based on high degrees of hygiene and productivity, founded on rationalist models. The construction industry ran in parallel to the food and pharmaceutical industries, as likewise occurred with precision instruments and nuclear energy. Information about these advances, along with social education related to them, was promoted through international fairs. Avant-garde art and fashion also shared in this changing model of taste. The parody that Damien Hirst presents here directly affects the critique of a system that is \u201ccapitalist\u201d and \u201cpopular\u201d, where information plus seduction ends up multiplying consumption.<\/p>\n
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The Last Supper: From the Renaissance to Postmodernism<\/b><\/p>\n
And a new clue to decipher the enigma. When we stop looking at the work, we turn to the card with the title on it, constituting a new challenge; as with our first glance at the artwork, we are now invited to count the number of panels comprising the work. To our surprise there are thirteen of them, the same number as the participants in the Last Supper. The title of the piece thus refers to the Christian Last Supper, as in that mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the refectory at Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. Some five hundred years have gone by and the iconographic representation of the scene has changed: once a Renaissance masterpiece, now postmodern in character. Oil painting is not feeling so well. Each epoch expresses itself differently, with perspective, geometry, clothing, with still lifes featuring baked bread loaves and pure water in the middle, the movements of a table surrounded only by men, technique, betrayal\u2014and the priority of values.<\/p>\n
Design sharpens the relationship between form and function; in this piece, it is important for communication to be reconstructed. The visual appearance of the work of art conceals a critical reality in language, without which beauty would be inexpressive.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, this piece is dedicated to the \u201clast supper\u201d of all those (including us) who due to historical or biological fate are about to die. Beneath the name of every food product, in each of the constituting pieces, we see a medical formula.<\/p>\n
By bringing together these works and their legends, as if we were looking upon still lifes, the viewer, after researching into knowledge, might guess that the overall set is the pharmacy of a person with AIDS, grouping together the active principles of a variety of medicines: antiretroviral drugs for HIV and antibiotics for AIDS-related infections, antiemetics to stop vomiting related to anti-HIV treatments, along with anti-depressants, pain-killers and others, such as antifungal and arrhythmia drugs.<\/p>\n
The very expression \u201clast supper\u201d refers equally to the final holy meal of the master with his apostles, and, with Hirst, the last meal of a man condemned to die (whether condemned by criminal justice or a terminal illness). Amidst life and death, art and the artist, and language.<\/p>\n
Pharmacology addresses the human body like religion treats the spirit and art deals with language. The holy scriptures contain a universal narrative, like the medications treating the unwell person through medical prescription. Art places language outside of these binary worlds, situating it alongside life and death, communication and enigma.<\/p>\n
Vicen\u00e7 Altai\u00f3[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][rdy_button text=”View the exhibition” align=”left” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″ background=”#000000″ background_hover=”#fbc817″ text_color_hover=”#000000″ border_radius=”0″ link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.civitart.cat%2Fen%2Fexhibitions%2Fthe-last-supper-damien-hirst%2F|title:%5B%3Aca%5DExposici%C3%B3%20Cartografies%201%5B%3A%5D||”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][rdy_button text=”View the exhibition” align=”left” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″ background=”#000000″ background_hover=”#fbc817″ text_color_hover=”#000000″ border_radius=”0″ link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.civitart.cat%2Fen%2Fexhibitions%2Fthe-last-supper-damien-hirst%2F|title:%5B%3Aca%5DExposici%C3%B3%20Cartografies%201%5B%3A%5D||”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Last Supper, by Damien Hirst, is one the most important pieces in the collection of Josep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10654,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n