Damien Hirst - Visual Candy and Natural History

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Damien Hirst: Visual Candy and Natural History at Gagosian, Hong Kong, which included more than thirty paintings and sculptures by Damien Hirst from the early to mid-1990s. The Visual Candy paintings allude to art historical movements such as Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art, while the Natural History sculptures-glass tanks containing biological specimens preserved in formaldehyde-reflect the visceral realities of scientific investigation through minimalist design. Despite their stark formal differences, the two series were made during the same period and share conceptual foundations: an exploration of the relationships between pleasure and pain, transience and permanence, logic and emotion. The bilingual (English/Chinese) publication includes a new text by James Fox which considers the origins of the Visual Candy paintings.