Dimensions: support: 910 x 710 mm
Copyright: © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is Damien Hirst's "Round," from the Tate Collections. It's a vibrant spin painting, and it feels almost like controlled chaos. What do you see in this piece, especially considering Hirst's larger body of work? Curator: I see a direct challenge to the art world's historical obsession with the artist's hand. The mechanical process, like the detached commentary on mortality in his other works, forces us to confront the commodification of art and the artist's role in a capitalist society. Does this work feel celebratory or cynical to you? Editor: I think it's a bit of both. The colors are joyful, but the mechanical creation feels… empty? Curator: Exactly. Hirst is provoking a conversation about the meaning of art in an age of mass production and whether beauty can still hold value when divorced from human touch. Editor: That's a powerful perspective. It makes me reconsider my initial reaction. Curator: Art should be a starting point, not an end. Keep questioning!
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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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