Materials	showcase, medicines
Height:	cm. 137.00
Width:	cm. 101.00
Depth:	cm. 23.00

Damien Hirst

No Future (Sound of the Sinners)

1988 - 1989

 

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A prominent exponent of Young British Art, Hirst focuses his artistic reflection on death as prevailing image of a society dominated by appearances and money, of which he denounces the decay, the desolation, a taste for the horrid and for trivialities, with effects that most of the times are dramatic and informed with black humour. No Future (Sound of the Sinners) of 1988-89 is one of Hirst’s earliest works. At the time he was studying at the Goldsmiths College of London and was already known in the most go-ahead milieus of English art. The work consists in a steel case with shelves on which pills of different shapes and colours, reproduced in painted plaster by the artist, are aligned with a maniacal precision. With its minimalist and spectacular layout the work denounces the state of dependency of today’s society from the pharmaceutical industry and sends out a warning to the wealthy western society which is increasingly dependent on drugs to overcome its body and soul sickness. In 1992 Hirst develops this idea executing Pharmacy, an environmental installation consisting in a scrupulous reproduction of an entire pharmacy, on display at London’s Tate Modern. Six years later with advertising guru Matthew Freud he opened a restaurant in London, The Pharmacy. Hirst took care of every single detail of the furnishing, which included his shelves with pills and drugs. The restaurant became soon frequented by celebrities such as Madonna, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. When it closed, in 2003, Hirst sold every piece of furniture on auction, earning 11 million pounds.