Damien Hirst: revelations through shock tactics

Damien Hirst is the artist who single-handedly changed the contemporary art scene in Britain in the 1990s. He is the guy who preserved a shark for the sake of art, and who sliced a cow in two. Now, his most famous works appear in a retrospective at London’s Tate Modern

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 Whether you are an art aficionado with old-fashioned conceptions of art or are ready to be swept away by the shock value of contemporary art, it’s hard not be impressed with Damien Hirst. More specifically, it’s hard not to be impressed with the largest U.K. exhibition ever for the man who single-handedly changed the British contemporary art.

The sight of medicine cabinets neatly filled with pharmaceuticals, or the head of a cow with flies crawling all over it may not be your idea of art, but for evoking emotions and raising questions, Damien Hirst’s work would have to be at the top of a list of true works of art that leave an impact. That impact might wear out as soon as you leave the exhibition, but it’s definitely palpable when walking past dead and living butterflies, a shark suspended in formaldehyde.

With his first exhibition Freeze in 1988, Hirst leapt straight into the art scene, initiating a brand of contemporary art that would leave its mark on Britain in the 1990s. Known as the Young British Artists, YBA, or Britart, a generation of artists born in mid-1960s that included Hirst, along with others like Tracey Emin and Carl Freedman, revitalized visual art by incorporating shock elements in their work, using throwaway objects and showcasing their opposition to the system in unprecedented ways.

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