Name: Ribonolactone
Brand: Damien Hirst
Rating: 5 (233 reviews)

Track auction value trend

Damien Hirst's Ribonolactone (signed), a woodcut print from 2011, is estimated to be worth between £13,000 and £19,000. This is a rare artwork with an auction history of one sale on 28th November 2012. There have been no sales in the last 12 months or in the last five years. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 55.

Auction Date

Auction House

Location

Hammer Price

Return to Seller

Buyer Paid

November 2012

Van Ham Fine Art Auctions

Germany

Meaning & Analysis

Ribonolactone is a woodcut print from Damien Hirst’s 40 Woodcut Spots series from 2011. The vertically-oriented print shows eight rows of five spots that are identical in size and shape, each depicting a unique colour. Across the artist’s vast oeuvre every spot painting represents a unique combination of colours. The 40 Woodcut Spots series is an exploration of colour and form that is distinctly Hirstian.

The cold repetition and sterile aesthetic of the 40 Woodcut Spots series is reminiscent of Hirst’s early pill cabinet works such as The Void from 2000. Both works evoke a sense of endless sameness and directly allude to the realms of medicine and science. Indeed, the chemical name of each print in this series evokes a nondescript powder or pill that is abstract in its scientific mode.

In its depiction of many spots, methodically arranged, this print appears like a packet of medical pills, further exacerbated by the print’s title. Ribonolactone is formulaic and crisp in form, evoking a lack of human or artistic touch. Indeed, for many of the spot paintings throughout his career, Hirst employed assistants to produce them, This was part of the artist’s aims towards creating works that appear to have been produced mechanically, despite the way in which these prints and paintings are painstaking and laborious to produce.