Damien Hirst by Gordon Burn

‘On the Way to Work’ is many things.
It is a collection of conversations between Burn and Hirst. The conversations range from Hirst’s love for Francis Bacon, to grumblings on his dealings with the media.
But perhaps most importantly, ‘On the Way to Work’ is Hirst’s manifesto. It is an insight into how he views his own art.
This book is a great buy. If you are interested in Hirst, this book is essential.

(For those looking for a book that showcases Hirst’s art, I would recommend the fantastic: ‘I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere…’ )

I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now by Damien Hirst

What a tour de force! This is one of the most beautifully designed books money can buy. Jonathan Barnbrook created (together with Damien Hirst) a timeless masterpiece of book design. If you want to see what is possible in this medium, you want to own this book. It is hauntingly beautiful, filled with amazing interactive pieces bringing you as close to Hirst’s thinking and work as printed matter can get you.

What you are about to experience is a superbly intelligent visual introduction ot Hirst’s process united with breathtaking depictions of the results.

A tiny note for the “practical book-user”: This book is a work of Damien Hirst’s. In such a publication one should not be surprised to find “safety guidlines” on how to successfully “deal with one’s own life” - by using a gun. Gun owners might think twice before showing this book to their loved ones. Yet that’s another story. Or maybe not, from Hirst’s point of view? :*)

Superstition by Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is one of the most creative and influential contemporary artists. This is a wonderful book that examines the whole of Damien Hirst’s career and all of his beautifully shcoking ideas. This book itself is an amazing work of art. It contains not only many wonderful full color panels, but it has all kinds of extremely interesting interactive pages that mimic some of Hirst’s work. I highly suggest this wonderful book that does justice to this incredible artist.

For the Love of God: The Making of the Diamond Skull by Damien Hirst

I was fascinated by photos I’d see of the skull and bought this book because it was supposed to describe the creation of the incredible work of art.

This book spends a majority of it’s time on the age, shape, condition, teeth, and place of origin… OF THE REAL SKULL… not the jeweled creation. The discussion of diamonds is basically some drawn diagrams that explores the atom structure of diamonds. Who cares about atom structure?

There are a few great photos of the final creation, but nothing about the actual work that took place to create a platinum skull, setting the diamonds, etc.

Sorry to say this, but I recommend that you pass on this book.

From the Cradle to the Grave: Selected Drawings by Damien Hirst

The drawings are complemented by a selection of thumbnail photographs of finished sculptures and paintings. Accompanying essays by well-known writers Annuska Shani and A. A. Gill help the reader make connections between the drawings and Hirst’s other works of art. Exquisitely produced using a six-color printing process, From the Cradle to the Grave illuminates how Hirst’s compelling drawings were conceived and shows us the vitality behind their creation. AUTHOR BIO: Damien Hirst was born in Bristol and studied fine art at Goldsmiths College in London. In 1995, he won the prestigious Turner Prize. He has had recent solo exhibitions at the White Cube, London; the Marble Palace, Russia; Saatchi Gallery, London; Gagosian Gallery, New York; and Tate Gallery, London.

Blimey!: From Bohemia to Britpop : The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst by Matthew Collings and Matthew Collins

I recommend this for the photos, almost completely. And I do not mean the cover photo where the author, Matthew Collings, has chosen to put a huge picture of himself with an eye-trapping bullseye painting behind his head. This mystified me, till I read the incredibly disorganized, ungrammatical account Collings writes, really more of a reminiscence than a history. Along the way he attacks the brilliant R.B. Kitaj and the rest of the School of London(including those such as Bacon and Freud) as “a bunch of oldsters exhibiting their charcoal life drawings and stuff.” Incisive commentary that. Collings must make Robert Hughes tremble. Basically this is one huge self-promotional book, but generously illustrated with works of Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin and others from the infamous and brilliant SENSATION show, and contains, in spite of its obnoxiously chatty style, many interesting anecdotes about the London art world. One can almost piece it together despite the annoying narrator. The current London art scene is beautifully dangerous and the SENSATION Show(and I hope its catalog goes into print in the US soon)may be, in the end, as influential as the 1913 Armory Show, so it deserves study. Art needed back some kind of edge. The book is an OK intro to the subject and the photos alone justify purchase.

My only other complaint is the constant recurrence of those completely nightmarish perversions of conceptual art, the “living sculptures”(or charlatans, as I like to call them) Gilbert and George, laced oddly throughout the book for no apparent reason. What do they do? In a nutshell, they go about and place themselves in context, in photos or live. Why they think they’re interesting wherever they’re placed, or make a place interesting by their presence, is beyond me, but they’ve apparently made a great deal of loot from this. Go figure. John Roberson