“Pills are hope. Pills can kill.”

—Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst’s pill cabinets, such as End of Days, epitomise his enduring fascination with the intersection of medicine, mortality, and belief systems. For Hirst, pharmaceuticals are emblematic of our modern search for salvation – science’s attempt to replace religion as the answer to life’s most existential questions. Each pill, meticulously arranged within its cabinet, is a reminder of our dependence on these tiny, synthetic symbols of healing and control. Inspired by his own childhood experiences – Hirst's mother worked for a pharmaceutical company – he began creating the pill cabinets in the early 1990s, translating the cold sterility of the pharmacy into the realm of contemporary art. His works convey a stark duality: pills are both promises of health and poignant symbols of death, epitomising humanity’s fraught relationship with the promise of immortality. This thematic obsession was extended to his Pharmacy restaurants (Notting Hill, London, 1998-2003, and Vauxhall, London, 2016–18), where pill motifs adorned the interior, blurring the line between art, medicine, and consumerism.

Formally, the pill cabinets share a minimalist aesthetic that connects them to Hirst’s spot paintings, both series relying on repetition and colour to mesmerise and provoke. However, where the spot paintings offer a dizzying, abstract array of coloured dots with no discernible content, the pill cabinets give each object an explicit function, grounding the viewer in the language of pharmaceuticals. These arrangements of vividly coloured pills resemble candy-like ornaments, yet their medicinal potency underscores their darker subtext – life, death, and the illusion of control. Hirst’s pills act as a modern iconography, where medicine replaces the traditional icons of faith, alluding to a contemporary, secular belief in the omnipotence of science. In this body of work, Hirst raises provocative questions about our reliance on pharmaceuticals, suggesting that in contemporary society’s quest for meaning and control, science has taken on a quasi-religious role.

“There are four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help. Of all of them, science seems to be the one right now. Like religion, it provides the glimmer of hope that maybe it will be all right in the end.”

—Damien Hirst