- 423
Damien Hirst
Description
- Damien Hirst
- Trust
incised with the artist's signature, title and number 1/12 on the base
- cellulose paint on bronze, coins and polished steel
- 39 1/2 by 25 by 15 7/8 in. 100.3 by 63.5 by 40.5 cm.
- Executed in 2003, this work is a unique variation from a series of 12.
Provenance
The artist with White Cube, London
Condition
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Catalogue Note
This work is a maquette for the monumental sculpture Charity, 2003, which was famously installed in London's Hoxton Square from September - October 2003 for the exhibition Romance in the Age of Uncertainty.
[Charity] subverts the classical practice of elevating a noble subject by selecting the most dejected and wretched image of a disabled girl with her leg in a splint, scuffed clothes and her charity box broken into. Charity is based on a 1950s British charity donation box and yet, on this epic scale, it registers as both monumental and vulnerable, standing as a massive reproach, as if its size corresponds to the scale of our refusal to acknowledge a failure in charity. Unarguably about lived experience, it pushes into the social realm, speaking simply about injustice and the erosion of values.
White Cube (press release for the exhibition Romance in the Age of Uncertainty)