Provenance
White Cube, London
Catalogue Essay
“I can’t understand why some people believe completely in medicine but not in art, without questioning either.” (Damien Hirst, I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always forever, now, London, 2005, p. 24)

Damien Hirst is an artist renowned for his capacity to shock. Through recurrent themes of science, mortality, religion and beauty, Hirst has created a signature style that destabilises the comfort we seek in art, making us re-evaluate not only art’s role in our lives, but our entire outlook on life itself.

The original male counterpart to Wretched War, Hymn, created in 1999–2000, featured a 20-foot anatomical model in painted bronze. Towering over us, akin to a bewildering religious monument, the sculpture raised powerful questions on our reliance on both science and religion – opposing outlooks that both offer reassurance to the faithful. As Western secular society turns more and more to a reliance on science in lieu of our past faith in religion, Hirst questions our innate dependency on external solace and meaning. Through the independent medium of art, such questions gain a powerful dimension, as sentiment collides with reason and our biases are exposed.

A later development in the anatomical series, Wretched War again appropriates the anatomical model now in unpainted bronze, onto its equivalent: a pregnant, decapitated female. The ‘her’ to the artist’s Hymn, Wretched War mimics the ballet pose of Degas’ Little Dancer, alluding to a teenage pregnancy. The sacred image of mother and child appears like a victim of battle, the body scarred and flayed. Yet the striding pose appears strong and solid, the echoes of Degas overlaying an elegance and beauty which triumph frailty and decay. Wretched War reminds us that science alone cannot convey the overwhelming emotion and beauty of the human body, in all its wretched glory.
Artist Biography
Damien Hirst
British • 1965
There is no other contemporary artist as maverick to the art market as Damien Hirst. Foremost among the Young British Artists (YBAs), a group of provocative artists who graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in the late 1980s, Hirst ascended to stardom by making objects that shocked and appalled, and that possessed conceptual depth in both profound and prankish ways.
Regarded as Britain's most notorious living artist, Hirst has studded human skulls in diamonds and submerged sharks, sheep and other dead animals in custom vitrines of formaldehyde. In tandem with Cheyenne Westphal, now Chairman of Phillips, Hirst controversially staged an entire exhibition directly for auction with 2008's "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever," which collectively totalled £111 million ($198 million).
Hirst remains genre-defying and creates everything from sculpture, prints, works on paper and paintings to installation and objects. Another of his most celebrated series, the 'Pill Cabinets' present rows of intricate pills, cast individually in metal, plaster and resin, in sterilized glass and steel containers; Phillips New York showed the largest of these pieces ever exhibited in the United States, The Void, 2000, in May 2017.
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15

Damien Hirst

Wretched War

2004
Bronze.
158 × 70 × 86 cm (62 1/4 × 27 1/2 × 33 7/8 in).
Signed ‘Damien Hirst’ and numbered of 10 on the reverse of the base; further titled ‘Wretched War’ on the front of the base. This work is from an edition of 10.

Estimate
£200,000 - 300,000 Ω♠

Sold for £325,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

16 February 2012
London

1
This lot is no longer available.
2
Joe Bradley
Killroy
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000
Sold for £49,250
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3
Kelley Walker
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000
Sold for £85,250
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4
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000
Sold for £169,250
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5
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ‡♠
Sold for £505,250
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6
Marc Quinn
The Golden Column (Microcosmos)
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £289,250
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7
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #410
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £433,250
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8
Ugo Rondinone
VIERZEHNTEROKTOBERZWEITAUSENDUNDNULL
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000
Sold for £157,250
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9
Takashi Murakami
Troll’s Umbrella
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £385,250
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10
Thomas Schütte
Gelber Hund
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £241,250
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11
Isa Genzken
Dubai
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £61,250
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12
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ‡
Sold for £457,250
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13
This lot is no longer available.
14
George Condo
Woman in Blue Chair
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £205,250
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15
Damien Hirst
Wretched War
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 Ω♠
Sold for £325,250
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16
Andreas Gursky
Jumeirah Palm
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ♠
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17
Lucio Fontana
Concetto spaziale, Attese
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,049,250
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18
Roni Horn
When Dickinson Shut Her Eyes, no. 1259
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
Sold for £121,250
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19
Richard Prince
My Funny Valentine
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
Sold for £181,250
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20
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (HALF-EATEN)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
Sold for £181,250
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21
Ahmed Alsoudani
Untitled
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £229,250
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22
Walead Beshty
FedEx® Kraft Box© 2005: FedEx Standard Overnight Los Angeles–New York, trk# 8675 2590 1103; FedEx Standard Overnight New York–Washington, trk# 8631 3319 4523, date April 13–14 2009; FedEx Standard Overnight Washington–Miami, trk# 7950 0886 1541, date July 26–27 2011; International Priority Miami–London, trk # 8439 1188 5383, date January 11–13, 2012
Estimate £15,000 - 20,000 ‡♠
Sold for £58,850
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23
John Armleder
Alchemilla Vulgaris
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ‡
Sold for £55,250
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24
Damien Hirst
Sensation
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡♠
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25
Alex Katz
Ada on Green
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000
Sold for £229,250
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26
Olafur Eliasson
The Path Series
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡♠
Sold for £68,450
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27
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (The view from beyond the breakers)
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000
Sold for £157,250
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

16 February 2012 London

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Provenance

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Damien Hirst

15

Damien Hirst

Wretched War

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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16 February 2012
London