Death's Head
2011
Black Granite
Overall dimensions: 180.3 × 128 × 128 cm (71 × 50 3/8 × 50 3/8 in.)
This black, shiny, vein-streaked, mouthless head has a sinister anonymity. And for good reason: this granite skull with empty eye sockets is none other than that of Death himself. This chilling vision of death reveals an obvious sense of fear.
Death is a leitmotiv in Damien Hirst's work. Like a vanity, the skull is a recurring theme in his oeuvre. Examples include the installation Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in the Pinault Collection, and the insolent photograph With Dead Head. Personifying death with a head pushes the attempt to grasp the essence of the inevitable end even further away.
Hirst's Death's Head was presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection during the 2017 exhibition "Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable" at the Punta della Dogana.
Death is a leitmotiv in Damien Hirst's work. Like a vanity, the skull is a recurring theme in his oeuvre. Examples include the installation Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in the Pinault Collection, and the insolent photograph With Dead Head. Personifying death with a head pushes the attempt to grasp the essence of the inevitable end even further away.
Hirst's Death's Head was presented for the first time by the Pinault Collection during the 2017 exhibition "Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable" at the Punta della Dogana.
Exhibitions
© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, Adagp, Paris.
Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
Exhibition view, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy, April 9 – December 3, 2017.
