DAMIEN HIRST (Bristol, United Kingdom, 1965).

DAMIEN HIRST (Bristol, United Kingdom, 1965). "Shark," New York, 20.07.2007. Ink on paper. Signed, dated and located in the lower margin. Size: 17 x 28 cm; 33 x 44 cm (frame). Damien Hirst was born in Bristol on June 7, 1965, in a suburban environment with economic problems. He never knew his biological father and his mother married a car salesman, who left them when Hirst was 13. His mother, an amateur artist and devout Christian, took care of him, but because of his father's abandonment he had to be educated from the bottom up, which is perhaps the main reason why Damien Hirst argues that art is classless. He trained at the University of Leed while combining his studies with a job at the local mortuary, which he later abandoned to move to London. During this time he was working in construction and in turn applying to various art schools such as St Martins, or the faculty of Wales. He was finally accepted at Golsdmiths College, which at the time, due to the economic recession in England, was a school that attracted bright students and creative tutors. While studying, Hirst financed his expenses by working on telephone surveys, a direct cause of his ability to fake any emotion over the phone. During his studies he also worked at McDonald's, and part-time at the Anthony D'Ofray gallery, where he learned the mechanics of the art market. Already in his second year of studies, Hirst, acquired the role of artist and curator, and managed to make an exhibition that would change the course of British art, it was his first solo exhibition with only 26 years. Four years later, in 1995, he won his second Turner Prize nomination for Mother and Child. At the age of 32, the Larry Gagosian Gallery offered him a major retrospective, after which he declared that he had no place left to exhibit, he had done it all and too fast. So soon the media baptized him with the name Hooligan Genius. Although he became a millionaire at the age of 40, Hirst's hypersensitivity became suspicious; wrapped in an aura of romanticism, he made revolutionizing the art world seem simple. On several occasions he has acknowledged his desire to be famous and in the face of criticism he has defended himself with phrases like "they could not admit to themselves that they wanted to be famous and resented not being famous" or "I think my desire was to be more famous than rich, I think the desire to create art and be famous is like the desire to live forever two obsessions: death and celebrity".