Three Decades Later, Damien Hirst’s Natural History is All Shock and No Value

A shark is suspended in swimming pool blue formaldehyde solution. Teeth bared, it seems poised to strike, but is limited by the confines of its tank. More importantly, it’s dead. This grim representation is Death Denied, a sculpture by Damien Hirst in which he has turned the shark into an eternal corpse, killing it before it can kill us. The sculpture, among many other animals in tanks, is currently on view at Gagosian’s Britannia Street London location as part of their exhibition, Natural History. 

Hirst rose to fame largely because of sculptures like Death Denied (he began his Natural History series in 1991). While some lauded Hirst as a genius, animal rights groups were outraged. One of the Young British Artists, Hirst was part of a movement that, at times, leaned towards the extreme. Hirst’s work has long been undeniably popular, and the confined shark has become something of an icon of 21st century art.

Natural History at Gagosian offers a variety of Hirst’s tank animal works, spanning from the start of his career to present day. In the clinical, white cube setting of the gallery space, the works appeared more like very expensive science experiments than works of art. Such detached coolness is lost upon closer inspection, the dead animals prompting a visceral reaction. The work, in this way, disrupts the gallery space. As Carol Duncan argues in Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums, the museum is a place of ritual. If this is so, then are Hirst’s sculptures offerings? Sacrifices? Neither. Instead of becoming a part of the ritual that is looking at art, they turn that ritual on its head. 

Installation view, Gagosian, Britannia Street, London, 2022. Image: Gagosian.

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One does not–cannot–look at these works the same way they might look at a marble sculpture, expressly because of the reaction the pieces incite. Like a car crash you can’t look away from, the sculptures simultaneously draw you in and repel you. Of course, each visitor will have a completely different experience from the next. When I visited the show, I found it hard to remain in the gallery space for an extended period, and, after leaving the gallery, felt dirty, like the viewing of the pieces made me complicit in their creation. 

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Hirst’s animals become a cipher through which Hirst forces the viewer to consider mortality. But what complicates these reminders of death is the disgust of the viewer (present in at least some capacity) for what Hirst has done. One becomes more focused on the “how” and the “why” of the piece than of any memento mori message Hirst has to offer. The reminder of death has long been exhausted in thousands upon thousands of works. It’s easily identifiable and replicable, capable of coming across as derivative. The animals suspended in formaldehyde do serve as a reminder that everything must die. But the particular cruelty of placing dead creatures (or parts of them) on display makes us question why these animals met their end rather than think of our own fates. Beyond the physically gross or creepy nature of many of the sculptures, the major impact of the work is centered on Hirst himself, his ego irredeemably present. Hirst is showing off, using flashy materials, getting away with murder (according to a report by ArtNet News, some 913,450 times), and delighting in our surprise and emotion. Hirst has used the animal body as a medium, almost as if they were ready-mades (prefabricated objects raised to the status of art by the artist) that he has placed into his tanks and sealed. They, of course, are not ready-mades, but living beings. The problem is not that Hirst fails to acknowledge that fact, it is the central element of his work… it’s that he doesn’t seem to care. 

Accepting the Turner Prize early in his career, Hirst declared, “It’s amazing what you can do with an E in A-Level art, a twisted imagination, and a chainsaw.” While his imagination is certainly twisted, it is a lack of imagination that brings these works down. There is little transformation, usually only cuts made with his referenced chainsaw, and there is simply no way to justify the slaughter of animals for a result that is so conceptually basic. Not only is the technically gross element of animal carcasses off-putting, but so too is Hirst’s profit off it repugnant. Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, another tiger shark in tank, sold for between eight and twelve million dollars in 2004. As of 2020, Hirst had a net worth of 384 million dollars, an eye-watering figure in comparison to what many artists struggle to make. Spectacle pays off. 

Hirst’s Natural History series is designed to shock. Throughout the history of art, some of the works we now laud as masterpieces were reviled, their audiences deemed too ignorant or close-minded to understand the brilliance before them. Hirst seems to be attempting to evoke a similar reaction, inferring that anyone who does not ‘get’ these works or is genuinely distressed by them simply cannot comprehend the true artistry at play. In this case, however, a shocked audience does not mean they are too senseless to understand; it means they have a heart. Hirst displays the animal bodies as if to say, “Look how sensitive you are,” a perspective that is as cold as it is manipulative. Often, modern and contemporary art is inaccessible to the masses, as it relies on certain elements that only those that are in-the-know (wealthy and educated) can appreciate. Many viewers of Death Denied and Hirst’s other tank animals are therefore alienated, made to believe their emotion is an overreaction to the casual display of death. 

In a video from the time of the Turner exhibition, Hirst speaks to the concept of his work, comparing the tanks to the grid pattern that permeated the modern art movement. He goes on: “it works like that on one level, but on another level it’s just like ‘Oh wow, what’s that.’” Therein lies the issue. Hirst is concerned with the reaction of the viewer more than the work itself, more preoccupied with scandalizing the viewer than with creating any lasting meaning. I left the gallery thinking not of Hirst’s historical references or the inevitability of death. I left remembering the animals themselves, the whites of their eyes, the strain of their bodies. I left thinking of what Hirst has done ethically, not what he has done creatively. And I left disgusted.