Among the most iconic pieces in artist Damien Hirst’s controversial body of work — a bizarre mix that includes dissected animals, a pickled shark, dot paintings, spin paintings, butterfly assemblages, a rotting cow’s head, and diamond-encrusted skulls — are the Medicine Cabinets.
The first two cabinets, which were made in 1988 by the then 23-year-old Hirst in his London kitchen, contained pharmaceutical packaging from his recently deceased grandmother’s medicine cabinet. He followed these sculptures, Sinner and Enemy, with a suite of twelve cabinets that were titled after the tracks on the Sex Pistols debut album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Four of the medicine cabinets from the series were exhibited in Hirst’s degree show at Goldsmiths College of Art in 1989, but the whole group has never been shown together — that is, until now.
New York’s L & M Arts has assembled the artist’s Sex Pistols medicine cabinets, along with Sinner and Enemy; a monumental four-part cabinet, titled The Sex Pistols, from 1996-97; and a cache of actual Sex Pistols’ memorabilia into a comprehensive overview of this important chapter in Hirst’s dynamic career. The gallery also collaborated with the artist’s publishing company, Other Criteria, to produce a catalogue that includes an essay by art scholar Arthur Danto, some punk prose by the notorious James Frey, a catalogue raisonné of the complete medicine cabinets, and a hilarious conversation between Hirst and former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, who’s an outspoken radio disc jockey in Los Angeles.
Damien-Hirst: Medicine Cabinets is on view at L & M Arts through December 11.
Paul Laster @'Flavorwire'
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