Art in ideas

There is no formaldehyde involved in the Damien Hirst exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. There are not many artists who require such a disclaimer, but Hirst found fame in 1991 for The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a real (dead) shark suspended in a vitrine of formaldehyde. He continued for several years in a similar vein, showing a variety of animals in states of both perfect preserve and dissection. And then he changed his mind.

There have been many words written about Hirst, some glowing praises, some harsh criticisms. Since graduating from Goldsmiths College in London in 1989, he has won a Turner Prize and been the subject of several major exhibitions.

His shock tactics might have instigated this attention, but 15 years after the shark, Hirst has proven himself an artist of many talents. The show at the Portland Art Museum displays four of Hirst’s more recent works from the Santa Monica-based Broad Foundation.

Something Solid Beneath the Surface of All Creatures Great and Small (2004) is Hirst’s 21st-century take on his earlier vitrine works. As promised, there is no formaldehyde, because there is no flesh left to preserve. Instead, a carefully arranged group of skeleton animals meets the audience head on.

It’s almost an exhibit in the wrong museum, except the labels are missing, or maybe it was a procession bound for Noah’s Ark that was just a little late. Whatever the similarity, Something Solid… hurls one of Hirst’s favorite themes (death) like a greased fastball. One cannot help but admire the meticulous precision with which the skeletons are presented. Every snake’s rib is in place. Each delicate bird bone is perfect. Even the ram’s horns look to have been shined.

After the initial reaction subsides, the bones begin to become pretty in a morbid way; the graceful curve of the pelican’s vertebrae and the threadlike bat’s wings are fascinating. At least 30 different species are reverentially represented, Fluffy and Fido included. All are structurally amazing in death.

On the neighboring walls are two of Hirst’s painted works. The first, Chlorprotamide (1996) is the earliest included work, and hails from his period of spot paintings. This series was executed by hand in Hirst’s studio by his very patient assistants. This lack of direct artist contact is one of the major points of the work.

Hirst follows in the “art as concept” tradition, believing that it can be the idea, not the execution, that is the true art form. The variously colored dots dance around the canvas in seemingly random order, and it’s only after serious scrutiny that one can believe a human hand was at all involved in their creation. The title? There is not such drug as chlorprotamide, but two minutes of staring at the huge canvas makes one wish there were.

Autopsy with Sliced Human Brain (2004) shows the more recent direction of Hirst’s paintings. Photorealistic from a distance, the work becomes fuzzy and painterly up close. When interviewed, Hirst has confessed to being the “finisher” of the recent works, swooping in at the end to paint the fun bits (any blood or gore) and apply thin coats of wash to tie the works together.

The result should be slightly more disconcerting. After all, the image is copied from a photograph of the dissection of a human brain. But instead, it seems like an attempt at “grosser than gross” played by a fourth-grader. The fuzziness destroys the illusion to reveal an empty two-dimensionality that is visually unsatisfying.

The final piece dominates the south wall of the space (fourth floor in the new Jubitz Center). Three large medicine cabinets full of medical paraphernalia loom over the audience, especially when one gets close enough to read the labels.

You want to read the labels. No Art; No Letters; No Society. (2006) is a perfect contrast to the skeletal display in the center of the room. This is a comment on life and desire for life that subtly questions society’s reliance on modern medicine. Each cabinet also contains a human skull with markings for medical study, visibly jointed for explanation of muscles, but taped by Hirst to reflect his title, Hear no, See no, Speak no Evil.

It is practically impossible to avoid getting close to the cabinets. The contents lure one into proximity to notice the shards of mirrors interspersed with the bottles and scalpels. The pearly rosaries dangling from the handles speak of hope and prayer, yet the contents relate to science and hard reality. It’s almost impossible to recognize most of the contents. Occasionally a bottle of antibiotic rings a bell, and the “opium tincture” is fairly obvious, but most of the British medicines are unfamiliar to civilians, leaving us to contemplate the mystery of medical science, and whether all those bottles are full or empty.

Which brings us to Hirst’s true point. He raises questions for which answers are at best difficult and often impossible to come by. Why is much of his work discomforting? The subject matter seems the obvious choice, but in truth TV provides more graphic detail in a more accessible manner. Hirst’s talent is in the open-ended, unobvious questions that stem from the audience in contemplation of his work.