Eternal Sleep depicts a human skull, a reminder of the inexorable passage of time. The edition acts as a distinctive statement of intent. It has been imagined, sculpted and perfected through hundreds of hours of work, using the mastery of the lost-wax process.
“Out of this world, celestial almost. It proclaims victory over decay. At the same time it represents death as something infinitely more relentless. Compared to the tearful sadness of a vanitas scene, the skull is glory itself." —Rudy Fuchs

Eternal Sleep depicts a human skull, a reminder of the inexorable passage of time. The edition acts as a distinctive statement of intent. It has been imagined, sculpted and perfected through hundreds of hours of work, using the mastery of the lost-wax process.

“Out of this world, celestial almost. It proclaims victory over decay. At the same time it represents death as something infinitely more relentless. Compared to the tearful sadness of a vanitas scene, the skull is glory itself." —Rudy Fuchs

In Damien Hirst’s world, skulls have a distinct role to play. Like the Memento Mori or the vanitas symbols in the history of art, they portray the artist’s obsession with the inevitability of human mortality.

"All these gold paintings, gold and diamonds...it's definitely all about feeling like King Midas."

DAMIEN HIRST

With For the Love of God, Damien Hirst made the ultimate vanitas, a replica of the skull of a thirty-five year old man from the thirteenth century, covered with platinum, set with 8601 diamonds and a 52,4 carat pink diamond on the forehead. Created by the artist in 2007, this totem offered to God, is a true icon and broke all records to become the most expensive contemporary artwork in the world.

In Damien Hirst’s world, skulls have a distinct role to play. Like the Memento Mori or the vanitas symbols in the history of art, they portray the artist’s obsession with the inevitability of human mortality.

"“You don’t like it (death), so you disguise it or you decorate it to make it look like something bearable – to such an extent that it becomes something else."

DAMIEN HIRST

Furthermore, since the beginning of his career, the artist has been fascinated by the possibilities of print-making and multiple images.

Encompassing two of the main motifs of Hirst`s oeuvre, I Once Was What You Are, You Will Be What I Am is a complete set of photogravure etchings. The prints depict six mysterious and slightly menacing human skulls, appearing from a void and black background. Furthermore, the photogravure works were hand-inked, bringing out the rich and velvety texture of the ground and shadow from which the skulls appear.

The present set was printed in a small edition of 48 copies on 400gsm Velin Arches paper, in a small edition of 48, and published by Paragon Press, London.

Overall, the Portfolio represents a Memento Mori - the Latin expression for "Remember your mortality" or "Remember you must die"- whose aim is to remind people of their mortality, an artistic theme dating back to antiquity.

Dumas is known for highly contested subjects. However, probably the most scandalous theme in her art is childhood, embodied by the artist's merciless depictions of children.

Dumas portrays children as distorted, uncanny and discomforting creatures. The prevalent feeling embodied in those works is fear, and it is the fear of nothing else but babies. To see your own offspring as a parasite might seem outrageous to most of people but not to Dumas. The artist, despite also being a mother, does not restrain from using her own children as models for her, at the very least, ambivalent works. She exposes the monstrous, and deeply suppressed by most adults, nature of children and replaces their presumed innocence with something disturbing.

But these sometimes horrifying depictions have much more to offer than just the shock value. They allow us to question something that before seemed unquestionable - our conventions of parenthood versus reality.

“ No painting can exist without the tension of what it figures and what it concretely consists of — the pleasure of what it could mean and the pain of what it's not. „

—Marlene Dumas

Andres Serrano was raised in a devoutly Catholic neighbourhood where religion played a significant part of his growing up. From his first images as an artist, sacred icons and other symbolic elements have been frequenting his tableaux-like photographs. From religious iconography, human subjects, dead animals to more precise elements such as blood urine, milk, semen and later excrement, the artist seeks to convey a sense of dignity to his subjects and to reconcile the sacred and the profane.

"When I did the portraits of the homeless, The Nomads, or the Ku Klux Klan series, I saw them as portraits of individuals and also as symbols and representations of issues and social groups that sometimes clash with each other and with the rest of society."

ANDREA SERRANO

This print belongs to the portraits of Ku Klux Klan members series, photographed in their own milieu ('Klan Series', 1990) by the artist. It confronts viewers with more discomforting image of violence and death. Still, even these retain a certain seductive quality. Drawing from the lexicon of advertising, fashion and even pornography, Serrano's large-format, highly saturated photographs aestheticize their subject matter, even when this is abject in nature.

Andes Serrano is known for his fearless color photographs representing controversial subjects, including Ku Klux Klansmen, dead bodies, faces, handguns, and Catholic figurines submerged in bodily fluids.

“I don’t think my work is shocking ” - Andres Serrano

References to Catholic emblems and doctrine are recurring in Serrano's art. His photographs are carefully composed and appear painterly showing suffused light and saturated colors. The subjects in his photographs are represented on the base of classical sculptural qualities as form, mass and balance.