Damien Hirst

DAMIEN HIRST (Bristol, United Kingdom, 1965).
Levi's jacket
Polyester and cotton.
Features label with artist's signature printed on it.
Slight wear marks.
Size: XL
This garment is the result of the British artist's collaboration with the San Francisco denim brand for the Warhol Factory X Spring 2008 collection. The collection was presented during New York Fashion Week in September under the name "Warhol Factory X Levi's X Damien Hirst". The hooded sweatshirt-style jacket features a hood and a belt in the front. On the fabric of the jacket is one of the famous Sping paintings that Hirst began to make in the early 1990s with a potter's wheel and which have become an emblem of his artistic career.
Damien Hirst argues that art has no class. He trained at the University of Leed while combining his studies with a job at the local mortuary, which he later left to move to London. During this time he was working in construction while also applying to various art schools such as St Martins and the Welsh College. He was eventually 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 his degree, Hirst took on the role of artist and curator, and managed to stage an exhibition that would change the course of British art, his first solo exhibition at the age of 26. 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 there was nowhere left for him to exhibit, he had done it all and too quickly. As a result, he was soon dubbed Hooligan Genius by the media. Although he became a millionaire at the age of 40, Hirst's hypersensitivity became suspect: wrapped in an aura of romanticism, he made revolutionising the art world look easy. On several occasions he has acknowledged his desire to be famous and in the face of criticism he has defended himself with phrases such as "they couldn't 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 with two obsessions: death and celebrity".