Damien Hirst

Pharmacy, London 

Sotheby’s, London, Damien Hirst: Pharmacy, 18 October 2004, Lot 28 (consigned by the above) 

Acquired from the above by the present owner

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years, September - December 2012, n.p., illustrated in colour; and p. 128, no. 85, illustrated in colour 

Exh. Cat., New York, L&M Arts, Damien Hirst: The Complete Medicine Cabinets, October 2010, p. 183 (text)

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals some minor wear to all four corner tips and some slight cracking to the mitered tips and one small crack to the centre of the left edge. Further close inspection reveals a media accretion to the right bottom side edge, one short pencil line to the centre of the left edge, and one small media accretion to the centre left of the stainless steel lock on the bottom edge. There are some faint scuffs and scratches to the aluminium rim. The boxes exhibit a slightly worn look, which is inherent to the artist's choice of found materials.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Titled Eight Over Eight after the eponymous Chelsea eatery, the present work is from a small group of 16 Medicine Cabinets that were created by Damien Hirst for his celebrated Pharmacy Restaurant in Notting Hill. Pharmacy was an artistic and culinary landmark that offered a quintessentially unique dining experience in the heart of one of the capital’s most culturally vibrant and bohemian areas. It was an iconic venture that epitomised the sense of excitement and cultural identity that was so prevalent in London at the dawn of the new millennium. Hirst sought to recreate the clinical, minimalist aura of a pharmacy for the look and feel of the restaurant: from the monochrome butterfly paintings and exquisite pill cabinets to the conical light fittings and pill-shaped bar stools, he created numerous unique works and designs specifically for the space. Noting the particular role the Medicine Cabinets played in the restaurant, Stephen Fry added: “Damien’s extraordinary cabinets kept [Pharmacy] cool in every sense. Not since Keats have apothecaries and art gone together so well” (Stephen Fry, August 2004, cited in: Auction Catalogue, Sotheby’s, London, Damien Hirst: Pharmacy, 18 October 2004, p. 56). After Pharmacy closed in 2003, Hirst made the ground-breaking decision to stage a blockbuster auction the following year at Sotheby's, London, in which he sold 166 items from the restaurant, including the present work, ranging from original artworks to tableware, furniture and wallpaper. Speaking of the impetus behind the restaurant and subsequent sale, Hirst recounted: "my original intention was to make a great place for people to be – maybe a little surreal, like eating in a chemist... I think auctioning all the stuff is a great idea as that way everybody gets a chance to own a piece” (Damien Hirst cited in: Louise Jury, 'Art You Can Eat Off at Hirst Sale of Pharmacy's Kitchen Kitsch, The Independent, 5 July 2004, n.p.). 

In its carefully selected assortment of pills, mixtures, and medicine packets enclosed within its five shelves, Eight Over Eight signifies the progression of existence itself, presenting the ‘tools’ required to maintain a long and healthy life. Furthermore, Eight Over Eight and the other Medicine Cabinets channel a Pop art ideal in their presentation of quotidian commercial goods: a re-imagining of consumer commodities as previously emphasised by Jeff Koons, in works such as Three Ball 50 / 50 Tank from 1985. Arthur C. Danto has articulated this concept with reference to the Medicine Cabinets: “Damien Hirst’s Medicine Cabinets series, projects a certain, latter-day Pop art aesthetic – colourful, brash, and familiar to a community of consumers – and at the same time it connects with the artist’s philosophical preoccupations with birth and death, as well as with his deep belief that art heals” (Arthur C. Danto, ‘Damien Hirst’s Medicine Cabinets: Art, Death, Sex, Society and Drugs’ in: Exh. Cat., New York, L&M Arts, Damien Hirst: The Complete Medicine Cabinets, 2010, p. 5).

Eight Over Eight, along with the other works in the series, combines two of Hirst’s key interests and abiding areas of investigation: science and mortality. The very presence of the serried ranks of medicine bottles, creams, and pills hints at the fragility of the human body, whilst acting as a concomitant paean to the remarkable medical advances of the Twentieth Century. The darker connotations suggested by Hirst's medicine cabinets are thus alleviated by the inherent presence of hope and the possibility of being able to mitigate pain and suffering: full of items that have the potential to heal, the simple medicine cabinet is here imbued with life-changing qualities. Eight Over Eight thus becomes an almost magical repository of seeming immortality.

Hirst remembers a moment in a pharmacy with his mother, picking up on the trusting faith that people invest in the power of pills and other modern medical inventions to cure all ills, an all-encompassing panacea: “I’d been trying to explain loads of work to my mum, about what I’d been doing. She’s an open-minded person, but she had a completely closed mind about it… And I was with my mum in the chemist's: she was getting a prescription, and it was, like, complete trust on the one level in something she’s equally in the dark about… It’s just completely packaging and formal sculpture and organised shapes. My mum was looking at the same kind of stuff in the chemist’s and believing in it completely. And then, when looking at it in an art gallery, completely not believing in it. As far as I could see, it was the same thing… I really loved the idea of art maybe, you know, curing people” (Damien Hirst cited in: Gordon Burn and Damien Hirst, On the Way to Work, London 2001, p. 25). An exposition of Hirst’s career-long interest in the cycle of life, Eight Over Eight is a potent signifier of humanity’s inherent hope in the possibilities of future immortality attained through the wonders of scientific advancement.