WENDY WEITMAN: Damien Hirst may be the most provocative – even infamous – artist working in London today. But there’s been a notable burst of creative activity there in the 1990s, which we’re showcasing in this gallery devoted to recent work from Britain.
Much of Hirst’s work centers on themes of mortality and death. A frequent motif is cigarettes, and here you can see one of a multiple pack of Camels he designed. There's a remarkable quote by Hirst in which he compares life to a cigarette – naming the pack as birth, the match as God, lighting up as the spark of life, and the ashtray as death. Underneath the cigarette box is a multiple of a plate that Hirst screen-printed to look like an ashtray.
DEBBY WYE: Then you have this pop-up book with the same title as the Camel pack. Although it’s open to a butterfly, it contains many images referring to cigarettes, death, and hospitals.
WENDY WEITMAN: The cover, in fact, shows an image of an x-ray room. And inside, there’s also a list of suicide instructions and images of the inside of an ambulance.