To Create This 'Masterpiece' It Took 65 Boiler-Suited Assistants, a Driver to Collect a Pounds 20,000 Watch, One Flunky to Buy a Teaspoon and Another to Clear the Dead Flies. So What Did Damien Hirst Actually Do?

Daily Mail › July 17, 2006

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Summary

WHETHER or not it was intentional, there is something deeply ironic about the central installation in Damien Hirst's latest exhibition. Entitled The Tranquillity Of Solitude (for George Dyer), the work was inspired by Francis Bacon's paintings of his lover George Dyer, whom he found dead on a toilet from an overdose.

The Hirst exhibit, currently showing at London's Gagosian Gallery, consists of three glass cases, each containing a sheep in blue formaldehyde that appears to be acting out part of Dyer's tragic demise.

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To Create This 'Masterpiece' It Took 65 Boiler-Suited Assistants, a Driver to Collect a Pounds 20,000 Watch, One Flunky to Buy a Teaspoon and Another to Clear the Dead Flies. So What Did Damien Hirst Actually Do?

In the first, a shorn sheep is positioned on a lavatory seat, its head thrown back in an apparent silent scream and a hypodermic syringe jutting out of the animal's leg. Scattered on the floor beside the beast is a teaspoon and saucer: the paraphernalia of a junkie.

The second shows another sheep, this time suspended above a sink, and the third shows yet another lone sheep on a lavatory - this time appearing to vomit into a sink, with an empty vodka bottle and some scattered pills at its feet.

It may be a m...

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