Methyl Aspartic Acid
Methyl Aspartic Acid
Signed Print
Damien Hirst
£4,700-£7,000Value Indicator
$10,000-$14,500 Value Indicator
$8,500-$13,000 Value Indicator
¥45,000-¥70,000 Value Indicator
€5,500-€8,500 Value Indicator
$50,000-$70,000 Value Indicator
¥910,000-¥1,350,000 Value Indicator
$6,500-$9,500 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Screenprint
Edition size: 150
Year: 2011
Size: H 79cm x W 74cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2024 | Forum Auctions London | United Kingdom | |||
| January 2023 | Phillips London | United Kingdom | |||
| September 2022 | Bonhams Knightsbridge | United Kingdom | |||
| September 2022 | Phillips London | United Kingdom | |||
| June 2022 | Phillips London | United Kingdom | |||
| February 2022 | Wright | United States | |||
| October 2019 | Sotheby's New York | United States |
Meaning & Analysis
Methyl Aspartic Acid is a print by Damien Hirst from 2011 that six perfect circles and three half circles composed in a grid. This print is a variation on Hirst’s famous Spot paintings, arguably his best-known series, of which there are over 1,400 works on canvas. The Spots paintings are crucial to understanding Hirst’s quasi-scientific rationality that underpins much of his practice.
Hirst works almost exclusively in series and his scale of production is considerable enough to merit employing a large number of assistants across various studios in Gloucester, Devon and London. The artist has commented on this: “I like to do series… I think that I try to avoid doing something unique, or being unique. If you feel like that, you end up benefiting by using other people. I like the idea of a factory to produce work, which separates the work from the ideas, but I wouldn’t like a factory to produce ideas.”
Alongside the other Spots paintings in his oeuvre, the formulaic composition of Methyl Aspartic Acid explores the boundaries between aesthetics and science, based in Hirst’s fascination with colour combinations and harmony. The print embodies Hirst’s artistic oeuvre that interrogates the intersections between the scientific and the artistic that are wrongly assumed to be oppositional in contemporary culture.
Damien Hirst, born in Bristol in 1965, is often hailed the enfant terrible of the contemporary art world. His provocative works challenge conventions and his conceptual brilliance spans installations, paintings, and sculptures, often exploring themes of mortality and the human experience. As a leading figure of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement in the late '80s, Hirst's work has dominated the British art scene for decades and has become renowned for being laced with controversy, thus shaping the dialogue of modern art.
