Description

Damien Hirst — Beautiful Mickey. Silkscreen Print. 1370 x 1360 mm (54 x 53 inches). Edition of 50. Signed and numbered. Published by Other Criteria. £14,000.00. This edition of Beautiful Mickey prints is based on an original painting by Damien Hirst. It is the first print Other Criteria has published with Hirst illustrating his spin painting technique. At the invitation of Disney, the artist has reimagined one of the twentieth century’s most iconic characters, Mickey Mouse. Fabricated alongside the Mickey spot painting (2012), Beautiful Mickey Mouse Painting sees Hirst join the rich lineage of artists – which includes Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg – to have taken Mickey as their subject. On the significance of Disney’s best loved character, Hirst states: “Mickey Mouse represents happiness and the joy of being a kid. [He] is such a universal and powerful icon.’ Hirst’s interpretation incorporates the mouse’s silhouette into one of the artist’s spin paintings. Hirst’s first interest in spin art arose as a child, after he witnessed their fleeting fabrication at a school fair. In the early 90s, he conceived his own series; mechanically revolving canvases whilst applying brightly coloured household gloss paint to their surfaces. Whilst their chance spontaneity stands in contrast to the formulaic spot paintings, both series explore the idea of an imaginary mechanical painter ‘who is always happy’; the results of the Spins are controlled purely by the artist’s colour choices and the motion of the machine. Stating that the movement ‘implies life’, Hirst has described the paintings as, ‘childish… in the positive sense of the word’. Here, he marries the exuberance of colour with an icon, instantly recognisable the world over.