An investigation by the Guardian alleges that four formaldehyde sculptures created by Damien Hirst and dated to the 1990s were actually created in 2017. In the first of two reports, published on 19 March, an unidentified source claims that Hirst’s company, Science, “instructed employees to artificially age the sculptures, making them look as if they were made in the 1990s”.
Representatives at Science have confirmed that three of the sculptures in question were indeed physically made in 2017: Dove; Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded; and Cain and Abel, which have been respectively dated by Hirst to 1999, 1993-99 and 1994. The earlier dates refer to when the works had been conceived, rather than produced, they told the Guardian, adding that Hirst “has been clear over the years when asked what is important in conceptual art; it is not the physical making of the object or the renewal of its parts, but rather the intention and the idea behind the artwork”.
A fourth sculpture, The Unknown (Explored, Explained, Exploded), dated to 1999 and now on display at the Palms casino resort in Las Vegas, was also created in 2017, the Guardian alleges in a separate report published today (22 March). “Sources familiar with the creation of the sculpture said it was made in 2017 in preparation for its installation in the hotel”, according to the Guardian. Science had not yet confirmed this to be the case by the time of this article’s publication.
When asked about the timeline discrepancies, lawyers for Hirst told the Guardian that “the dating of artworks, and particularly conceptual artworks, is not controlled by any industry standard”, adding: “Artists are perfectly entitled to be (and often are) inconsistent in their dating of works.”
The artist’s representatives also told the Guardian that any attempts to prematurely age the works while being made at the artist’s workshop in Stroud, Gloucestershire, would have been part of an “artistic process”. A spokesperson for Hirst declined to comment further when contacted by The Art Newspaper.
“It’s reasonably obvious to anyone who knows anything about the formaldehyde works that none of the work in that series being shown today is likely to have its original components from the 1990s,” says Jon Sharples, an associate at the London legal firm Howard Kennedy. “Perhaps the most interesting question here is whether artists should be making it clear which works have been physically realised for the first time recently and which have been revisited.”
Museums and organisations that have exhibited the formaldehyde works in question assert that their own captioning directly reflected the information provided by Hirst’s studio. A spokesperson for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which exhibited Cain and Abel in 2021 and 2022, told the Guardian that the institution “understood [1994] to be the creation date of Cain and Abel as per artwork label convention”.
Representatives from Munich’s Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art [MUCA], which is currently showing Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded, and Gagosian gallery, which represents the artist, did not respond to The Art Newspaper‘s requests for comment. A Gagosian spokesperson told the Guardian that it “disputed” the points made in the Guardian article, on the same grounds laid out by Hirst’s team.
The Guardian claims it “could find no mention anywhere of the works having existed, in any form prior to 2017” and makes note of “industry norms” to argue that dates placed in captions accompanying works were widely understood as referring to the date of a work’s production.
“It is not common practice in the art historical canon to date the finished artwork with the date that saw its conception as an idea,” says Angelina Giovani, the director of research at Flynn & Giovani Art Provenance Research. “In instances where the beginning and end date of a work of art are different, or there are doubts around its time of execution, then traditionally a year range is given.”
