Artist Damien Hirst's iconic, contested works now on display at MMCA

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Artist Damien Hirst's iconic, contested works now on display at MMCA

Published: 23 Mar. 2026, 07:00 Updated: 01 Apr. 2026, 21:02

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

[REVIEW]

Damien Hirst poses with his much-contested “For the Love of God” (2007), a platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds and set with human teeth, displayed at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's exhibit “Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible” in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 19. [NEWS1]

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea’s (MMCA) exhibit on Damien Hirst, “Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible,” is an homage to Hirst’s glory days, showcasing his major works over 35 years, including the shark in formaldehyde; diamond skull; spot and spin paintings; and a piece from his iconic “Freeze” show from 1988.

There is a twist, though.

Tucked away from the main galleries, the final section turns to Hirst’s most recent “River” paintings, with the unfinished works offering a candid look into the former art superstar’s ongoing search for direction.

But does this late chapter provide a new way of seeing Britain’s enfant terrible, or does it merely reinforce the narrative of an artist past his prime?

Damien Hirst poses with his work, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (1991), displayed at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art's exhibit “Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible” in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 19. [JOONGANG ILBO]

The MMCA, which has injected 3.3 billion won ($2.2 million) into the show, maintains that Hirst is not only relevant but also an artist of serious craft.

“[Hirst] is an icon in contemporary art,” MMCA’s head curator Song Soo-jung said. “If he is a must-see artist [of this period], then any time later [to see his works] would be too late. In this sense, we believed this was the most timely — and the earliest — moment to present such an exhibition.”

The show is Hirst’s first large-scale survey in Asia.

“[Hirst] himself has often said that he has a rather rebellious streak. [...] However, it is undeniable that he approaches art with great seriousness and has consistently explored modern society through a coherent and sustained thematic inquiry,” said MMCA’s director Kim Sung-hee. “I hope this exhibition will offer audiences a deeper understanding of the artist and serve as a source of new inspiration for many.”

"With Dead Head” (1991) [LEE JIAN]

Born in Bristol, Britain, Hirst first came to public attention in London in 1988, when he conceived and curated the group exhibition “Freeze” during his sophomore year at Goldsmiths, University of London. It effectively launched a new wave of British artists who would go on to reshape contemporary art and popularize it as a mainstream genre in Britain and beyond. Hirst has since held over 90 solo exhibitions, including a major retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2012.

His art explores how modern society tries — and ultimately fails — to control, understand and assign value to life through science, beliefs and money. As a result, death is a consistent through line in his oeuvre.

The MMCA show begins with Hirst’s works from his 20s, including a photo of 16-year-old Hirst posing “With Dead Head” (1991) at a morgue in Leeds. This is followed by “When Logics Die” (1991), Hirst’s first installation work, which comprises bottles of disinfectants and medications next to a picture of a person who has committed suicide — pixelated, as the public museum deemed it too graphic — depicting that even though humans take pride in their intellect, their logic is useless in the face of death.

Damien Hirst's first large-scale survey in Asia, “Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible,” is on display at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 19. [MMCA]

But the rest of the section consists of work that is light, bright and colorful. Viewers are surrounded by spinning, paint-splattered wheels ("Beautiful Exploding, It’s a Boy, It’s a Girl, Calligraphy Monster Time and Space Red and Green Space Hoop Hello Painting," 1999); fields of polka dots stretching across a 3-meter (9.8-foot) canvas ("Spot Painting," 1986); rainbow cardboard boxes ("Boxes," 1988); a beach ball suspended above metal spikes ("The Fragility of Love," 2010); transparent caskets ("You Avoid Me, I Avoid You," 1991); and a hair dryer delicately keeping a ping-pong ball aloft ("What Goes Up, Must Come Down," 1984). They explore the fragile balance between control and chaos, as well as the precarity of life and the uncontrollable nature of death.

The section also aims to introduce Hirst’s painting origins by displaying his collage works from 1984 to 1986. These pieces have random objects pasted on grubby wood canvases — inspired by his former older neighbor, who was a compulsive hoarder.

“[Hirst] had a deep longing for painting from early on,” explained Lee Soo-yeon, an MMCA curator. “He believed that painting was the true essence of art and deeply admired painters. But when he first began to paint, he found himself overwhelmed by the fact that he could paint anything, but he didn’t know what he should paint. Faced with that uncertainty, he went through something of a slump. And the collages, according to him, were his breakthrough.”

"The Artist" (1986), left, and "Monkey Toothbrush" (1986) [LEE JIAN]

Hirst’s earlier artistic explorations are followed by his breakthrough glass vitrine works, including “A Thousand Years” (1990), a severed cow’s head with a swarm of flies, and “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (1991), an open-mouthed shark suspended in formaldehyde, both of which force viewers to confront the idea of death despite seeming so distant to the living.

The third section focuses on his medicine cabinet series, showcasing various displays of pill-stocked cabinets (“Sinner,” 1988, and “The Sex Pistols,” 1996), which he felt resembled a kind of altar reflecting absolute faith.

"A Thousand Years" (1990) [MMCA]

His floral triptych “The New Arrivals of Blossom” (2019) is also placed here. Though they feel somewhat out of place among the medical paraphernalia, it’s unclear where else they would belong. It marks a stark departure from what Hirst has long been known for and seems to lack the distinct identity driven by shock value that he has built.

Though the painting does not deliver the same immediate impact as his other works, the thick, almost excessive layers of paint gives an unsettling sense to the viewer. Rather than evoking the expected sense of beauty or rapture associated with flowers in full bloom, the canvases carry a faintly eerie chill.

"The New Arrivals of Blossom" (2019) [LEE JIAN]

The following section, and the last official act of the show, is in a darkened room housing the much-contested “For the Love of God” (2007), a platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds and set with human teeth. Hirst has always had his share of detractors, but this work in particular drew some of the harshest criticism. Dismissed by many as overly literal and conceptually thin, it was seen less as a meditation on death than as a dazzling spectacle of wealth.

Another reading, echoed by the MMCA, suggests that the piece exposes how, under contemporary capitalism, even human life and death can be transformed into objects of value, producing a new awe directed not toward nature or the divine but toward the invisible power of capitalism.

"For the Love of God" (2007), front, and "Contemplating the Infinite Power and the Glory of God" (2008) [NEWS1]

Whatever the verdict, by that point in his life, Hirst was a global star who fully took advantage of the spoils of the market. He signed with blue-chip galleries such as White Cube and Gagosian, and his pieces were sold for record prices in auctions. In 2008, he famously bypassed galleries to consign 223 works directly to Sotheby's in London, generating around $200 million. His net worth was estimated at roughly $700 million as of 2022, placing him among the wealthiest artists in the world.

The MMCA exhibition, much like Hirst himself, seems unable to resist a spectacle. It recreates the now-closed Pharmacy restaurant in London, originally designed by Hirst in 1998 and later revived at his Newport Street Gallery in 2016. Nearby, an enormous spot-painting mural produced for the show and the unicorn sculpture “Myth” (2010) occupy an open indoor lot outside the galleries.

Up two flights of stairs exists a low-ceilinged space, designed to mimic Hirst’s studio in London; according to the curator, even the floor was removed from his studio and installed here in Seoul. Some 30 canvases in the artist’s latest “River” paintings — which Hirst has been working on for the past three years — are scattered throughout the makeshift studio.

“Here, you can see the artist’s deeply serious reflections on and approach to life and art,” said curator Lee.

The paintings trace back to when Hirst encountered a small Henri Matisse work at the Centre Pompidou and wondered: What if he could translate that intimate view into the scale of an abstract Expressionist painting?

Damien Hirst's London studio, recreated at the MMCA [NEWS1]

Like the cherry blossom series, the “River” departs sharply from Hirst’s reputation and is bright, carefree, at least at first glance, and saturated with paint. But unlike Matisse, these paintings resist being categorized as conventionally beautiful, veering toward something more awkward and tacky — particularly in their unfinished state.

“People are like rivers, and the river runs through the middle of all the paintings and through all of us, so maybe the river symbolizes life. Or maybe death,” reads an excerpt by Hirst, printed on the exhibition wall.

Only Hirst could look at Matisse’s joie de vivre and see death.

Hirst was present on the press preview day of the show but did not stay to answer questions, saying, “I think the work speaks for itself.”

Damien Hirst speaks to reporters about his show “Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible” at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno District, central Seoul, on March 19. [NEWS1]

But the final part of Hirst’s MMCA show, where his “River” paintings lie, offers a more candid look into the much-contested artist’s present state through a few paragraphs that the artist personally wrote for the show, now on the walls next to his Matisse pastiche.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m doing and trying to record something about me, you, us, about the world and how it passes us by and how we are.”

“When I first started [the paintings], I used to turn them to face the wall at the end of every day,” he continued, “but after a while, I realized it was my studio and no one was going to see them anyway, so I stopped turning them. They will never be anywhere near as good as that small painting by Matisse, but that was just a mad idea anyway, and they are slowly becoming something else.

“It feels like something important, and I don’t know what exactly. It’s a kind of hybrid thing about ugliness and beauty, the power of paint and the energy trapped in paint and something else about the hand, the mind and the eye and the world of a painting that isn’t really about the world where we live, where there’s gravity and life and death.”

“Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible” runs through June 28.

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]