Damien Hirst sculptures made by preserving animals in formaldehyde were dated by his company to the 1990s even though they were made in 2017, an investigation by the UK’s Guardian newspaper alleged in March 2024. Since then, there has been much debate among artists and others in the contemporary art world about the ethics and legality of dating artwork.
The newspaper’s investigation focused on four Hirst works allegedly made by his employees in 2017, of which three were first exhibited that year in Hong Kong by Gagosian with 1990s dates stated as: Cain and Abel, 1994 (twin calves side by side in white-framed vitrines); Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded, 1993-1999 (a shark dissected into three pieces in three white-framed vitrines); and Dove, 1999 (a bird, wings outstretched as if in flight, set in a single acrylic box). Gagosian subsequently exhibited all three in New York and London from 2018 to 2023.
In 2021/22, Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History exhibited ‘Damien Hirst’s famous Cain and Abel (1994) artwork’ in its Meat the Future exhibition about animal products. A museum spokesperson explained to the Guardian that ‘These dates were provided by [Hirst’s company] Science Ltd, and the museum understood them to be the creation date of Cain and Abel as per artwork label convention. The museum reproduced them exactly as Science Ltd presented them with the date in brackets, and Science Ltd signed off our artwork label before printing’.
From October 2023 to Autumn 2024 at Munich’s Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA) a major solo exhibition, ‘Damien Hist – The Weight of Things’, is on display that includes a work exhibited and dated as Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded, 1993. MUCA explained its 1993 dating of the alleged 2017 made work thus: ‘The museum has worked directly with the artist Damien Hirst and his studio for this exhibition. As such, all artwork cataloguing details have been provided by the artist’s studio and displayed in accordance with the artist’.
The fourth Hirst work recreates Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded, 1993-1999. Re-dated 1999 and re-titled The Unknown (Explored, Explained, Exploded), it was installed in 2018 above drinks cabinets of the Unknown Bar at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Guardian alleges that ‘sources familiar with the creation of the sculpture said it was made in 2017 in preparation for its installation in the hotel’.
At the heart of the matter lies the question of whether artists should give their works the date of final physical making, or of original conception – perhaps both conception and making spanning a date range. When questioned by the Guardian, Science Ltd said ‘Formaldehyde works are conceptual artworks and the date Damien Hirst assigns to them is the date of the conception of the work. He 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’. Hirst’s lawyers later clarified that ‘The dating of artworks, and particularly conceptual artworks, is not controlled by any industry standard … Artists are perfectly entitled to be (and often are) inconsistent in their dating of works’.
Whilst it is true that there is no controlling art industry standard – even regulation – for dating contemporary artworks, it is widely understood by art market and cultural professionals that the artist’s dating of a finished work signifies its making not its conception; and that an assigned date range signifies its making over a period of time. Consider, for example, dating of two notable works by Marcel Duchamp, whose practice Hirst has acknowledged as having been influential on his own career:
Duchamp dated as 1915-23, his ‘hilarious picture’ The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). Conceived in France in 1912, his assigned date range signified the work’s physical making in New York City from 1915, to his enigmatic declaration in 1923 of its being ‘definitively unfinished’. By the 1960s, the work’s glass panels had become too fragile to risk being transported for exhibition in the UK. And so Duchamp authorised Richard Hamilton to reconstruct the work in the UK in 1965/6, for inclusion in the now celebrated retrospective Hamilton curated for the Tate Gallery in 1966: ‘The Almost Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp’. Now in Tate Modern’s collection, the Duchamp-Hamilton version is accurately labelled ‘1915–23, reconstruction by Richard Hamilton 1965–6, lower panel remade 1985’.
Tate’s 1966 retrospective did not include an installation work Duchamp physically made in secret over twenty years, which he dated 1946-66: Étant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau / 2° le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas). A year after Duchamp’s death in 1968, the work was assembled following his written instructions that included its first exposition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Conveying truth about making a work is the exclusive prerogative of artists. Beyond the art-historical tradition of signing and dating a finished piece, there are other ways artists might communicate the status of works. Works may leave an artist’s possession as a permanent sale or gift, as a consignment to a dealer/agent for exhibition and sale, or as a temporary exhibition-only loan. Recipients of such works should ideally be assured of both the date or date range of making, and also whether the work is, for example: unique; one of a numbered limited edition or series; one of an unnumbered unlimited edition or series. Such assurances could be specified in artist-signed written sale/gift/consignment/loan agreements, perhaps buttressed by further provision of an artist-signed certificate of authenticity.
Artists’ moral rights were introduced almost a century ago reflecting artists’ absolute right to determine authorship of their original works – including assigning their completion date. Today, such moral rights laws exist in most countries worldwide, automatically giving artists the legal rights to claim (or deny) authorship of works. Such rights endure for artists’ lives plus decades after death (and so may be exercised by their estates). Legal rights are usually accompanied by tacit ethical responsibilities: to act with professional honour and integrity.
Reputation in the art world is arguably the most valuable asset an artist possesses. It may take a career lifetime to earn good standing, but can take just one professional misstep to lose it.
© Henry Lydiate 2024