Damien Hirst: Mandalas


Beautiful but strange exhibition at White Cube, Mason’s Yard of new work by Damien Hirst.

These works were beautiful round mandalas made of butterfly wings on household gloss paint. These huge circles, in iridescent colours, were striking but had a sense of cruelty. They pull you into their centre which was usually a single whole butterfly. It drew on ideas of Victorian lepidopterist displays with elements of abstraction and also gave a sense of the fragile made concrete.

The elephant in the room was where he gets the wings from. There was no mention of this in the handout or any notices in the show. In a way this added to the sense of cruelty but I would have liked this made plain.

Closed on 2 November 2019

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