Dimensions: support: 910 x 710 mm
Copyright: © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: We're looking at Damien Hirst's piece called "Spinning Wheel," part of the Tate Collections, a screenprint on paper. Editor: My first thought? It feels surprisingly fragile. This delicate, almost minimalist circle, so small on such a big page... almost like a target, but very quiet. Curator: Hirst often plays with that tension, doesn't he? The sterile precision, like something from a lab, but hinting at something more chaotic and human. Editor: Absolutely. I see the cultural weight Hirst carries, the debates he stirs about art and commodity, but here, stripped back, it's almost meditative. Curator: Perhaps a reflection on cycles, repetition, the spinning of time itself? Considering Hirst's broader interest in life, death, and value. Editor: It does make you question what you're looking at, it's a dance between the clinical and the strangely personal. Curator: A good reminder that even the most notorious figures can offer moments of quiet contemplation, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Exactly. Hirst subverts expectations; it's art that asks you to think, even in its seeming simplicity.
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This is one of the twenty-three etchings that comprise the first volume of two portfolios, In a Spin, the Action of the World on Things I and II. Each etching was made by the artist in London 2002, printed on 350gsm Hahnmuhle paper, proofed and editioned at Hope (Sufferance) Press, London and published by Charles Booth-Clibborn under his imprint, The Paragon Press. There are sixty-eight sets of prints, numbered 1–68 on the colophon page, and six proof copies. Tate’s copy is the second in the edition. Each set is accompanied by a colophon page and presented in a box with an original spin painting in household paint on the cover and the title and artist’s name printed on top. In addition to etchings similar to those in the first volume, the second volume of In a Spin... includes a photograph of the night sky that Hirst took using a long exposure, recording the movement of the stars in the sky caused by the earth’s rotation, and contributing to the notion expressed in the words: the Action of the World on Things. The artist first coined this phrase in 1999, when he was explaining the origin of his spot paintings (see AR00498), differentiating two strands of his work: ‘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.’ (Quoted in Damien Hirst and Gordon Burn, On the Way to Work, London 2001, p.119.) In the event, the imagery of In a Spin, the Action of the World on Things I and II unites these two strands.
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