The press pack is as thin as I’ve ever seen it. The only journalist from a major daily newspaper is Carol Vogel from the
New York Times,
who
has just written a story about Hirst’s
The Miraculous Journey
, a sequence of fourteen gargantuan bronzes that charts the growth of an embryo from conception to birth. The first sculpture depicts a sperm penetrating an egg; the final portrays a 46-foot-tall baby endowed with what is the first penis on public display in the Gulf region. Sited outside a hospital, the work exploits a loophole in Muslim law; it is halal to represent the body if it is for scientific and educational purposes. Sheikha Mayassa al-Thani, the director of the Qatar Museums Authority, told Vogel that she thought the giant baby boy was a self-portrait.
*
Ironically, although the baby’s facial features resemble those of the artist, the sculpture—which is so generic as to be voiceless—doesn’t look like an artwork by Hirst at all.
While the other journalists start a guided tour with Francesco Bonami, the retrospective’s curator, I follow the photographers to the photo call. Wearing a white T-shirt, black jacket, and gold and silver chains, Hirst stands with his arms crossed in front of a colorful round spin painting, titled
Beautiful, childish, expressive, tasteless, not art, over simplistic, throw away, kids’ stuff, lacking in integrity, rotating, nothing but visual candy, celebrating, sensational, inarguably beautiful painting (for over the sofa)
(1996). He frowns at each photographer individually, giving each lens its moment of eye contact. After a minute or two, he notices me brandishing my iPhone at the back, raises his hand high above his head, and hollers “Hi!” in a strangely mocking teenage girl’s voice.
Hirst disappears and I join the journalists who are loitering around
For the Love of God
(2007). For the first time, the diamond skull is presented as an artwork in dialogue with other pieces, rather than like crown jewels spotlit in a dark room. It is in a face-off with a shark
in a formaldehyde tank called
The Immortal
(1997–2005). Behind it, a smaller skull—that of an infant, covered in pink diamonds—is staring into the mouth of Hirst’s largest shark work to date, a 22-foot black basking shark in a 34-foot-long tank titled
Leviathan
(2006–13). “That little one scares the shit out of me,” says Robert Bound, culture editor of
Monocle,
about the baby head. The skulls are in a grand rotunda at the center of the show. “Ninety-nine percent of the visitors to this show will be coming to see the diamond skull,” says Arsalan Mohammad, editor of
Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia
. “It’s pure Gulf.”
A few feet away, Myrna Ayad, editor of
Canvas
magazine, peers at a wall label, noting that the title
For the Love of God
has not been translated into Arabic. “When you use the word ‘Allah,’” she explains, “you run a huge risk.” A self-declared atheist, Hirst’s regular references to religion take on different shades of meaning in the midst of zealous believers. A PR person comes over to escort Ayad to her group interview with Hirst. She offers to share her notes with me when she discovers that I haven’t been given a slot. Ask him about “Relics,” the title of the show, I say as she leaves the room. Is the artist positioning himself as a saint?
I wander past Bonami, who is holding forth in front of a handful of local journalists in the next room, referring to the new shark as a “killer work.” The curator gave me a tour a few days ago. Installers wearing turquoise rubber gloves were placing medical instruments in stainless steel cabinets to the sound of Paul Simon’s
Graceland
, and men in hazmat suits were dumping boxes full of British fly larvae, flown business class by Qatar Airlines, into Hirst’s installation
A Thousand Years
(1990). Bonami met Hirst in the mid-nineties, included his work in the 2003 Venice Biennale, and oversaw the presentation of the diamond skull in Florence in 2010. He believes wholeheartedly in the sinister and still unsold piece. “Even if we forget who made it,” he told me, “the diamond skull will always be an object of interest.”
Despite the diamonds—and the lavish wealth needed to host this show—the theme of money in Hirst’s work is downplayed. The exhibition is not strictly chronological, so Hirst’s general trajectory from cheap materials to luxurious ones is not obvious. Also, unlike Tate Modern’s retrospective, this one does not group together works from
the artist’s lucrative Sotheby’s sale. Instead, it spreads four of these pieces over three rooms, which lends them different interpretations. For example,
The Kingdom
(2008), a small shark in a black tank (which the Qataris are assumed to own), is surrounded by eight spot paintings with black backgrounds. In this context, the lone shark takes on a psychedelic quality, as if it were enjoying an altered state. “They wanted a serious show,” said Bonami, who evidently finds it hard to crack jokes in this milieu. He is a loyal Hirst fan but, when pressed, he admitted that the artist is like a “rock star with an entourage—unable to walk alone.”
I find myself standing in front of
With Dead Head
(1991), a black-and-white photograph of the artist (before he was one) next to a cadaver’s head in a morgue. My phone rings. “Meet me in the lobby,” says Jean-Paul Engelen, the sweet, long-suffering director of public projects for the Qatar Museums Authority. As he ushers me along a narrow corridor, Engelen tells me that there has been a change of plans and I can now join a group interview and even ask a few questions. I run into Ayad on the way. “I asked your question about relics and saints,” she says, pulling out her notebook. “He said, ‘I have problems thinking about God. I think he’s an artist.’” She widens her eyes with amusement. God is an artist? I repeat incredulously. Is he saying that God is made in his image? She nods, shakes her head, and shrugs sequentially, promising to send me the full transcript.
Hirst is sitting with his back to the door in a windowless room with three journalists and four communications handlers, including one whose company advises individuals on “reputation management.” The session is already underway. Jude Tyrrell, Hirst’s right-hand woman, waves me to the far end of the boardroom table, which is dotted with clusters of Coke, Red Bull, and Perrier.
“I have a lot of opposing views. All my shows feel like group shows. Lots of artists live in my head,” says Hirst to Bound, who is recording a podcast for
Monocle
’s website. They’re in the midst of a comfortable fireside-style chat. Hirst readjusts his rings—three of which are in the shape of a letter H.
Bound concludes his interview and Silke Hohmann, an editor at
Monopol
,
a German art magazine, takes over. She asks a series of questions about exhibiting in the Gulf. “When the culture is not your own, it is hard to be provocative in the right way,” explains Hirst. “The objective is to get people to listen to you even if you want them to change their minds a little bit.”
Next up is Mohammad from
Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia,
who concentrates on Hirst’s fourteen-piece sculpture depicting life in the womb. “It’s probably the least radical of my works,” concedes Hirst. Then he admits, as if by way of explanation, “There are not a lot of clients out there.” When Mohammad finishes, Hohmann pipes up with another question: “What is your favorite artwork?” Hirst gives the same answer he has given for twenty years. “Bruce Nauman’s neon,” he says, taking a moment to remember the title, “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths.” He also declares a fondness for Piero Manzoni’s
Artist’s Breath
(1960), a balloon that is literally full of artistic hot air.
“Sarah, do you want to ask any questions
about the show
?” asks Tyrrell, who is chairing the session. “Just go for it! Express yourself!” says Hirst in that puzzling “gay” voice, which attempts to be friendly but betrays residual hostility. Given the peculiar response that Hirst gave to Myrna Ayad’s question about the title “Relics,” I decide to ask it again. Jeff Koons talks about how artists are “burned at the stake”; I wonder if Hirst somehow feels martyred by the art world. In calling your show “Relics,” are you positioning yourself as a saint? At least that is what I mean to ask, but instead I also ramble about titling strategies and art-historical hagiography.
“That’s your five questions!” exclaims Hirst with a guffaw. Happy to have the upper hand, he adds, “After years of giving your works these long titles, you realize that people just call it ‘The Shark’ or ‘The Skull.’” Hirst uncrosses his arms and leans forward. “And I thought it was ironic to refer to contemporary art as relics. I don’t think you can say that artists are saints. Do we believe that relics are real anymore? Aren’t there five thousand ribs of Jesus Christ?” This response diverges greatly from the one he gave Ayad. “A relic is a venerated object from
a time gone by,” continues Hirst. “There is no denying that art has power. It is difficult to know what gives it that power. I like the idea that one plus one equals three in art whereas, in life, you get just two.”
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about Hirst is his willingness to talk numbers and business. Back in 2005, when I interviewed the artist in his bedroom, he had just come back from his company’s annual general meeting in Seville and told me how he was against “line management” because he preferred a “homely” cottage industry. “I go for loyalty rather than efficiency anyway,” he explained. He also recounted a story about the labor that went into making one of his meticulously crafted pill cabinets. “It was like they were down the pill mines,” he said. “I found it very uncomfortable. You can’t be selling these things for a lot of money when you have people slaving away like they were in a sweatshop.” In those days, Hirst had fifty employees.
How many staff do you have at the moment? I ask. “A hundred and thirty?” says Hirst, turning his head to Tyrrell. “A hundred and fifty,” she says, correcting him.
And how many staff did you have at the height of your productivity? “At the height, it was two hundred and fifty.” I wonder aloud if that bulge in numbers was in 2007–08, when Hirst was making 223 lots for the Sotheby’s sale. “Probably a bit before that, when I was doing the butterfly show for Gagosian,” he says. Hirst manages his empire through an array of companies, including Science, Murderme, Other Criteria, Damien Hirst and Sons Ltd, D Hirst Ltd, and The Goose Wot Laid the Golden Egg. His businesses are registered in both Britain and Jersey, an English-speaking tax haven off the coast of France.
Would you tell me about your relationship with Francesco Bonami? I ask. “He’s been an absolute joy to work with,” replies Hirst. “We’re old friends. When I lived in New York in ’95, we used to hang out and drink. We go back a long way—even if he does slag me off in his books.”
A tad irritated with Hirst and his team, and knowing we’re in a non-democracy, I ask, what are your thoughts about freedom of speech? Tyrrell looks sternly at me for flouting her rules. “Wow,” says Hirst. “I am completely against it. It should be made illegal.” Hirst leans back and crosses his arms. “If it were simple, it would be great, but it’s a gray area.”
“Artistic freedom?” says Tyrrell, trying to redirect him into safer terrain.
“I love freedom,” says Hirst. “I think we should have as much as possible but I’m not sure how much is possible. I prefer art, where you can say something and deny it at the same time.”
Visibly relieved to adjourn the session, Tyrrell says, “Thank you, Sarah!”
An hour and a half later, the press pack has been whisked away for lunch on a boat and VIPs start to fill the lobby, which is covered in butterfly wallpaper and features a café made to look like an upmarket pharmacy. Among the auction house people and dealers is a large coterie of Italian collectors (supporters of Bonami as much as Hirst) and a number of Arab collectors who have flown in from the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. A delegation from Saudi Arabia hovers around a prince who is the grandson of King Abdullah and son of the heir apparent. No one seems to know his name but a gold and black robe makes his status clear. Also present is Sheikh Hassan (a cousin of the emir and an artist), Miuccia Prada (the owner of the giant
Leviathan
shark), Franca Sozzani (the editor-in-chief of
Vogue Italia
), Nicholas Serota (director of Tate), and Naomi Campbell (who is in the region for a fashion show in Dubai). Francesco Vezzoli, an Italian artist in town for his own exhibition, titled “Museum of Crying Women,” stands with me, sipping fruit juice (no alcohol allowed). “Many people use Hirst as a target or symbol for all things bad,” says Vezzoli. “They think he has done too much, been overexposed. But I find the moralists, who talk like monks but lead the lives of supermodels, to be much more offensive.” In response, I explain the British concept of “champagne socialists.”
When the lobby seems filled to capacity, Sheikha Mayassa arrives with her attendants, causing weird mayhem. Her bodyguards randomly part the crowd, unsure of who should be in or out of her entourage. Mayassa wears a black abaya, showing a good inch of her pulled-back hair, a brown handbag slung like a satchel across her body, and flat Pradas with thick soles. I join the crowd wafting into the show behind her and see it for the third time.
Halfway through the exhibition, I find myself contemplating a large
stainless steel cabinet whose shelves are lined with cigarette butts. Titled
The Abyss
(2008), it was sold at Sotheby’s “Beautiful” sale, then shown in the Tate retrospective. A few weeks ago, I heard that the person who acquired
The Abyss
also bought
The Golden Calf
(2008), the controversial bull with the gold-plated horns, which was the top lot of the sale and hasn’t been seen since. The wall label here says that the work is on loan from the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which suggests that Bernard Arnault owns both works. If I’d discovered this information a few years ago, it would have been a nice scoop, but now I’m not sure who cares.
In a room featuring
Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain
(2008), a gold-plated statue with a detachable fig leaf, I notice Hirst deep in conversation with Jeff Koons. They have both shown with Gagosian Gallery and share a lot of the same collectors. Koons’s wife, Justine, and Hirst’s new girlfriend, Roxie Nafousi, stand by their sides, their paparazzi-ready smiles looking jetlagged. Koons is fastidiously trim and crisp. Although Hirst has changed into a black collared shirt, he is a mess by comparison. When the men finally part, Hirst strolls over to me and says, “Who was that artist I was talking to?”