“New Religion” of Damien Hirst displayed in Almaty
ALMATY. KAZINFORM - The exhibition of famous British artist Damien Hirst "New Religion" has been opened In Almaty. The exhibition was organized by British Council and the State Museum of Arts named after Kasteyev with support of the Eurasian Cultural Alliance.
The series of educational events within the framework of the exhibition will include lectures about impact of Damien Hirst on modern culture and a film about the life of the artist.
"New Religion" is about complicated relations between medicine and faith, art and religion. These topics have been central in the creative activity of Damien Hirst for many years. "New Religion" was first presented in the gallery of Paul Stolper in 2005, and afterwards in Oslo, Moscow, Venice, Sofia, Gdansk and London's All Saints Church.
"''I was thinking that there are four important things in life: religion, love, art and science...Of them all, science seems to be the one right now. Like religion, it provides the glimmer of hope that maybe it will be all right in the end", Damien Hirst tells about the "New Religion".
The different elements that make up New Religion form a chapel dedicated to desire, a desire to keep mortality at bay but which can't help confront death.
The forty-four silkscreen prints, and four sculptures that make up New Religion work like a fresco cycle - moving from the Creation of the World, through the Stations of the Cross and towards the Last Judgement. The prints surround an altarpiece with a cedar cross studded with gem-like pills, a child's skull, a large carved marble pill, and a heart wrapped in barbed wire and pierced by needles and razor blades. Hirst's vision is a marriage of the sacred and the profane, a contemplation of the fragility of life and the quest for longevity.