Notes from the programme:
A guy lived next door and one week they didn't hear him and some mates went round and founder he was a hoarder. Damien worked it out that he had kept about 60 years worth of stuff.
Screen shot from Programme
Screen shot from programme
Damien collected things from the flat and started creating art pieces from them. This was while he was at Gold Smith's. He realised the work he was doing was very similar to Kurt Schwitters and wanted to find his own thing.
Looked at advertising and all the pretty colours and did his dot paintings.
He noticed that there wasn't enough exhibitions for all the artists. So he set up some exhibitions, but because he set them up he did get noticed. 'Boxes' was a art piece he made at this time.
He found medicine cabinets interesting so put these in galleries. To start with he felt he couldn't just put them in a gallery and say they were art but saw other artists doing it and felt it was okay.
Screen shot from programme
The next part was about his art piece called 'A Thousand Years'. This started his work about death.
I think this piece is awesome. It is basically saying death is inevitable.
The next piece was butterfly paintings. These were because a fly got stuck to one of his paintings once and ruined it so thought about making something pretty from it. They are supposed to look like monochrome paintings and butterflies have accidently landed on them.
This was a piece that came from the paintings. The butterflies would grow up in there and then land on the paintings and then die all in one installation.
I like this idea, it is morbid and beautiful all at the same time.
Damien then spoke about how he used to go to the Anatomy Museum and the anatomy department in Leeds to draw dead people to back up his life drawing. He used to take mates to shock them. He looked at different things in formaldehyde and thought to put them in a gallery like the medicine cabinets. The first one was fish. His mum got from this piece that we are all conforming and going along the motions of life.
Damien was taught, as a kid, that he should confront things you can't avoid. Death being one of them. As a kid you aren't afraid of death. He used to talk to his grandma about death and realised at about 7 that there is nothing you can do about it.
'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' is the first piece where the main theme was death.
Damien's thought was to make an endless 'zoo' of dead animals called 'Natural History'.
Cutting in half is about minimalism. Other people helped make the art, he saw him self as an architect designing the pieces of art.
Hymn made from brass and covered in a skin to look plastic.
He went to Mexico on holiday and found out about how they deal with death. in quite a light hearted and jokey way.
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