P7228

© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2015. Photographed by Rick Jenkins and Donald Thompson.

CORNISH PASTY 1999

Damien Hirst (1965 – )

Details

Dimension
153 X 101.5 CM
Media
SILKSCREEN ON PAPER
Accession number
P7228

Summary

This work comes from The Last Supper portfolio. The 13 screenprints in the portfolio are based on specific pharmaceutical packets chosen for their designs rather than for the specific properties of the drug. The image is based on a pack of Rifadin®, an antibiotic used in the treatment of tuberculosis, leprosy and legionnaires disease and as a prophylacticaly in meningocollal meningitis. . This packaging was in use at the time the work was made in 1999. This Hirst photocopied, indicated the changes to the text and other details, and passed the instructions to Jonathan Barnbrook, who had designed Hirst’s book I Want to Spend the Rest of my Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now(published by Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1997). Barnbrook created new versions on computer and the digital information was output onto full scale film. The screenprints were made from these films at Coriander Studios: each print was made from between four and seven separate stencilled screens and then varnished.

The series was proofed and editioned at Coriander Studios, London and published by Charles Booth-Clibborn under his imprint The Paragon Press in an edition of 150.

In Print Contemporary Art from the Paragon Press, The British Council 2001 Text © Patrick Elliott

Further reading:
Contemporary Art in Print, Booth Clibborn Editions, London 2001. Texts by Jeremy Lewison and Patrick Elliott, foreword by Charles Booth-Clibborn

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Edition

    All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.

  • Film

    A transparent, flexible plastic material, usually of cellulose acetate or polyester, on which light-sensitive emulsion is coated, or on which an image can be formed by various transfer processes.

  • Imprint

    In a bibliographic item, the name of the publisher, distributor, or manufacturer, and the place and date of publication.

  • Portfolio

    A set of pictures (as drawings, photographs or prints) either bound in book form or loose in a folder. These can be by the same artist or individual works by a selection of artists. The term also refers to the folder which holds the set.

Portfolio