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Damien Hirst, 'Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot)', Lot 20
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 13 February
Provenance
Jay Jopling, London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1999
Catalogue Essay
‘The movement sort of implies life’ – Damien Hirst

An enthralling tondo that transports the viewer into a vortex of colour and movement, Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot), 1998, forms part of Damien Hirst’s celebrated series of Spin Paintings, which he first conceptualised in his Brixton studio in 1992, and tentatively introduced to the public as a participative method in 1993. In the summer of that year, Hirst and his peer Angus Fairhurst – both dressed as clowns – set up a ‘Spin Art’ stall at the London street fair A Fête Worse than Death, organised by Joshua Compston and featuring works by Gavin Turk, Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas. Hirst and Fairhurst’s stall encouraged passersby to create their own spin paintings by pouring variably coloured paint onto rapidly rotating canvases, producing a number of unique kaleidoscopic surfaces that, in their finished state, were sold for one pound each. It was only a year later that Hirst began creating Spin Paintings with the intent of growing them as a prominent branch of his infamously serial artistic practice. That year, he commissioned a scaled-up version of the machine he had used at the fair, and began to work on tondos – which now occupy the majority of the series. Calling comparisons with Jackson Pollock's infamous gestural process, Hirst’s application of paint combined with the machine’s energetic spin blurred the boundaries between genres and media. Created in 1998 as an early formulation of the series, the present work vividly embodies Hirst’s tongue-in-cheek attitude to art historical tradition through a brilliant process-based approach, lingering between painting and performance.

Enforcing his tendency to elaborate discreet rules for all his self-described ‘endless’ series of works, Hirst’s spins are often thematic and specific in designation. Like all other paintings from the series, Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot) bears an idiosyncratically elongated title that begins with ‘Beautiful’ and ends with ‘Painting’. Composed of amorphous masses of ochre, green, red and blue that take over the surface of the canvas entirely, the composition transforms into a wondrous and vivacious explosion of colour that departs from Hirst’s usual intentness on order, repetition, and quasi-scientific formulaism. Unlike his infamous Medicine Cabinets, Spot and Kaleidoscope Paintings, Hirst’s spins are controlled solely by the motion of a machine, which he is only able to manipulate to a limited degree. They are ‘childish… in the positive sense of the word’, the artist has said (Damien Hirst, quoted in Stuart Morgan, ‘An Interview with Damien Hirst’, 1995, reproduced online). They conjure a gem or candy-like visual universe that seems to spin forevermore – even in their final state. The circular shape of the canvas furthermore brings to mind Hirst’s infamous pattern of the spot, which invades a number of his series, namely his eponymously titled body of Spot Paintings.

The result of daring spontaneity and dizzying movement, Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot) is evocative of the movement found in Abstract Expressionist canvases, while at the same time recalling Robert Delaunay’s masterful circular compositions, which equally appear to swirl and whirl with unbridled energy. A tondo of colourful charisma enmeshing a number of striking hues, the present work boasts a comparable painterly constitution. Yet the wildness of its spin, paired with a revealingly feral title, suggests a tangible atmosphere. In this sense, one is reminded of Henri Rousseau’s The Dream, which features a nude woman reclining in flora and fauna, pried on by two wide-eyed lions. Though Rousseau’s picture entails scenic verisimilitude, and therefore contrasts with the present work’s full abstraction, its colours and suggestive angles convey a similar environment – beautifully tropical.
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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Ο◆20

Damien Hirst

Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot)

signed, titled and dated ‘Damien Hirst Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot) 1998’ on the reverse
household gloss on canvas
diameter 215 cm (84 5/8 in.)
Executed in 1998.

Estimate
£270,000 - 350,000 ♠

Sold for £350,000

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Olivia Thornton
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+44 20 7318 4099
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 13 February 2020

1
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Julie Curtiss
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3
Tschabalala Self
Princess
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4
Eddie Martinez
Neanderthal Jeans
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5
Katharina Grosse
Untitled
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
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6
Yayoi Kusama
INFINITY-NETS (KSUZL)
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
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7
El Anatsui
Affirmation
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8
Jia Aili
The Young
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
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9
Ed Ruscha
God Knows Where
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡
Sold for £3,375,000
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10
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate £3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for £3,206,000
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11
A.R. Penck
AUFSTAND DER SPIELER
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
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12
Günther Förg
Untitled
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £411,000
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13
This lot is no longer available.
14
Anish Kapoor
Blade
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
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15
Michael Craig-Martin
Full
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ♠
Sold for £162,500
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16
Damien Hirst
Antipyrylazo III
Estimate £900,000 - 1,200,000 ♠
Sold for £1,275,000
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17
Damien Hirst
Bodies
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ♠
Sold for £1,368,600
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18
Gilbert & George
CITY FAIRIES
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
Sold for £156,250
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19
Damien Hirst
Summer Breeze
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £435,000
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20
Damien Hirst
Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot)
Estimate £270,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £350,000
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21
Gary Hume
Magnolia Door One
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠
Sold for £40,000
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22
Peter Doig
Camp Forestia
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ♠
Sold for £800,000
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23
Cecily Brown
Girl Eating Turtle Dove
Estimate £550,000 - 750,000 ‡♠
Sold for £615,000
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24
Sean Scully
Robe Green Gold
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £987,000
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25
This lot is no longer available.
26
Alex Katz
Gray Bow
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000
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27
Tom Wesselmann
Reverse Drawing: Bedroom Blonde with Irises
Estimate £320,000 - 420,000 ‡
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28
Michaël Borremans
Untitled
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
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29
Adrian Ghenie
Pie Fight Study 4
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ♠
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30
Marlene Dumas
Chained to the Bed for 15 Years
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡♠
Sold for £325,000
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31
Takashi Murakami
Cosmic Power
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡
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32
KAWS
FAR AWAY FRIENDS
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for £900,000
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33
Takashi Murakami
Dragon Heads - Gold
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £495,000
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34
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35
Anish Kapoor
Sky Mirror
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ‡♠
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36
Raoul De Keyser
Hellepoort
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £131,250
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37
Marcel Broodthaers
Moules
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ♠
Sold for £168,750
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38
Carol Rama
Pornografia due
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
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39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Roman Opałka
OPAŁKA 1965/1 – ∞ DETAIL 4514079 – 4536373
Estimate £250,000 - 300,000 ♠
Sold for £471,000
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41
KAWS
ON TIME
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 13 February 2020

Create your first list.

Video

Provenance

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Damien Hirst

Ο◆20

Damien Hirst

Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot)

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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