Property of an Important European Collector

From the Catalogue:
Bursting with tactile layers of blue, hunter green, red and yellow, Beautiful Bloody Revolutionary Supersonic French Spin Painting for the Amazing Anne presents an exemplary work from Damien Hirst’s coveted Spin Painting series. The circular canvas exhibits several splashes of vibrant colour that spring outwards from a central point, elucidating the unmistakable spontaneity that electrifies the series. According to Hirst, Spin Paintings are “a massive explosion of energy—full of life, colour and optimism.” (Damien Hirst quoted in “Damien Hirst’s monumental spin artwork in spectacular display at Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony,” Artist’s Website, August 9, 2012, http://www.damienhirst.com/news/2012/olympics.) They recall the spinning of a record on a turntable, or Hirst’s long exposure photographic series that capture the movement of the stars. However, what sets the present lot apart from other spin works is the subtle evocation of a landscape demarcated by the diametric swaths of rich pigment hinting at a horizon line.

Beautiful Bloody Revolutionary Supersonic French Spin Painting for the Amazing Anne hearkens back to a 1993 collaboration between Hirst and Angust Fairhurst titled A Fete Worst than Death, an event curated by Joshua Compston in Shoreditch, London. Having constructed an impromptu spin art station, the artists offered visitors the opportunity to pay a mere £1 to create their own spin paintings to be autographed by the pair. Reflecting on this early performance piece, Gregor Muir recounts that for Hirst, spin paintings “proved too useful to be left behind, resulting in his subsequent Spin Paintings, all titled with extended sequences of charged words bookended by “beautiful” and “painting.” (Gregor Muir and Clarrie Wallis, In-a-Gadda-da-Vida, Tate Britain: London, 2004, 91). This key body of work has since contributed to seminal exhibitions including Hirst’s 2012 retrospective at Tate Modern.

Though Hirst’s extolled Spot Paintings are meticulously rendered by hand, both the Spot and Spin series analyse the theme of mechanical intervention. To create each Spin piece, paint is spilled onto a round canvas whirled by a machine at high speeds in reference to the optical experiments of Marcel Duchamp. Though Duchamp utilised motorised devices as a means of creating optical illusions, Hirst’s contemporary take focuses on the impressions of possibility, wonder, and elation evoked by the expression of movement. The remarkable dynamism of the present lot ultimately underscores the contending currents within Hirst’s practice: “an involvement with death and decay, and ideas and life: the action of the world on things exists somewhere, and the colour exists somewhere else. And it’s fantastic.” (Damien Hirst quoted in Damien Hirst and Gordon Burn, On the Way to Work, London 2001, p.119). Beautiful Bloody Revolutionary Supersonic French Spin Painting for the Amazing Anne offers a highly animated painting by the inimitable Damien Hirst, one of the most globally renowned artists working today.
—Courtesy of Phillips

Phillips: 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale

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