1. Damien Hirst, The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011 I met a painter this week, at an elegant black tie dinner, who argued the most remarkable thing I have heard at a smart affair; that Picasso would end up being a minor figure in art, at some point in the future. He is a realist (painter, that is) and seems swallowed up by his own view of what is allowed to be called art. Imagine what he must think of the global exhibition of Damien Hirst’s Spot Paintings. Larry Gagosian has filled every one of his 11 galleries (and temporarily re-titled his Madison Ave. store “Spot Shop”) with a single artist’s singular and complete oeuvre of dots. It is simply remarkable and remarkably simple. I don’t just love it because I love typology; as an exploration of every possible form of a given idea. I love it because it evinces every possible emotional reaction one might have to art, using the simplest of means to do so. It is the digitalization of emotion just as it is the Reductio ad Damien. First, there is the scale. It is as unexpected and immediately raises the level of awe it inspires. The enormous paintings take the pixel and render it gargantuan (5 feet). It forces you to take these paintings seriously by forcing them upon you. There is no distance far enough to ignore them. They feel like they would read on Google Earth. And somewhere there is a ? spot an inch across. Then there is the precision. These are perfect paintings (except those that are patently and purposefully hand made). The level of executional precision is beyond human. The edges of the paintings, exposing the canvas, create a painting layer of, in effect, no thickness at all. They appear to be mathematical planes with mathematical figures in mathematical perfection (see the 1884 novella “Flatland” if this kind of thing interests you). And let’s not forget that these are essentially the work of a colorist. The palette and permutations are intensely impersonal, but never become a dry lesson in color as science. One painting is filled with over 25,000 spots 1 millimeter in diameter, each with a unique color. It gives 8 bit and 16 bit color a bit of real life context. Finally, the variations are seemingly endless. And I have seen only one gallery’s worth of work. These are “The Complete Spot Paintings”, after all, and while it seems that Hirst has nearly exhausted the possibilities, the date is last year and it is hard to believe he is finished. My favorite part of the experience has nothing to do with the art itself, exactly, but with the gallery’s policy about photography. No painting may be photographed without a person standing in front of it. That’s right, these paintings can only be recorded as one would photograph a trip to the Grand Canyon or the Trevi Fountain or any other touristed spot. Hirst (and this is too perverse to be anyone else’s idea) has turned us from fellow artists into tourists. And he has made his paintings akin to natural and manmade landmarks, needing scale and humanity to be fully understood. I love this part of the visit. It is as though Hirst has personally intervened in our desire to abstract his abstractions. And I can’t figure out whether my painter friend would find this the best or the worst part of the show.

    Damien Hirst, The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011


    I met a painter this week, at an elegant black tie dinner, who argued the most remarkable thing I have heard at a smart affair; that Picasso would end up being a minor figure in art, at some point in the future. He is a realist (painter, that is) and seems swallowed up by his own view of what is allowed to be called art.

    Imagine what he must think of the global exhibition of Damien Hirst’s Spot Paintings.

    Larry Gagosian has filled every one of his 11 galleries (and temporarily re-titled his Madison Ave. store “Spot Shop”) with a single artist’s singular and complete oeuvre of dots. It is simply remarkable and remarkably simple.

    I don’t just love it because I love typology; as an exploration of every possible form of a given idea. I love it because it evinces every possible emotional reaction one might have to art, using the simplest of means to do so. It is the digitalization of emotion just as it is the Reductio ad Damien.

    First, there is the scale. It is as unexpected and immediately raises the level of awe it inspires. The enormous paintings take the pixel and render it gargantuan (5 feet). It forces you to take these paintings seriously by forcing them upon you. There is no distance far enough to ignore them. They feel like they would read on Google Earth. And somewhere there is a ? spot an inch across.

    Then there is the precision. These are perfect paintings (except those that are patently and purposefully hand made). The level of executional precision is beyond human. The edges of the paintings, exposing the canvas, create a painting layer of, in effect, no thickness at all.
    They appear to be mathematical planes with mathematical figures in mathematical perfection (see the 1884 novella “Flatland” if this kind of thing interests you).

    And let’s not forget that these are essentially the work of a colorist. The palette and permutations are intensely impersonal, but never become a dry lesson in color as science. One painting is filled with over 25,000 spots 1 millimeter in diameter, each with a unique color. It gives 8 bit and 16 bit color a bit of real life context.

    Finally, the variations are seemingly endless. And I have seen only one gallery’s worth of work. These are “The Complete Spot Paintings”, after all, and while it seems that Hirst has nearly exhausted the possibilities, the date is last year and it is hard to believe he is finished.

    My favorite part of the experience has nothing to do with the art itself, exactly, but with the gallery’s policy about photography. No painting may be photographed without a person standing in front of it. That’s right, these paintings can only be recorded as one would photograph a trip to the Grand Canyon or the Trevi Fountain or any other touristed spot. Hirst (and this is too perverse to be anyone else’s idea) has turned us from fellow artists into tourists. And he has made his paintings akin to natural and manmade landmarks, needing scale and humanity to be fully understood. I love this part of the visit. It is as though Hirst has personally intervened in our desire to abstract his abstractions.

    And I can’t figure out whether my painter friend would find this the best or the worst part of the show.