Damien Hirst is my homeboy.

Okay, so, you may or may not know that Saturday just gone I went to the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern, London. I've been wanting to see this exhibition for a few months, and when I finally got the chance I grabbed it with both hands.
(I realise that I should have done this post before yesterdays one because of chronological order and all that jazz. But it totally slipped my mind. So I'm doing it today. )

If you don't know, Damien Hirst is a VERY famous British artist. He's famously known for his obsession with dots, death and diamonds. You might also know him from some of this other wacky pieces of art, including Chopping a cow in half and preserving it in formaldehyde. It's fair to say his work isn't for the faint hearted, or the weak stomached.

I read up on some of the pieces that were to be in this exhibition, including a butterfly room, a living fly pit and a human skull encrusted with thousands of diamonds. These are some of the extremes Hirst plays with. Nothing could have prepared me for seeing it in person.
Unfortunately, the exhibition doesn't allow you too to use photography or recording of any kind, so I wasn't able to get any photos of the exhibition myself, but to illustrate what I'm talking about I'll draft in some photos from other sources.

One of the first things you see as you enter the exhibition space is the spot paintings. Lots of them, small dots, big dots, multi-coloured dots.

Next thing I was looking forward to seeing was the A Thousand Years piece. I'd read about this piece specifically and was dying to see it. Thankfully I didn't have to wait very long upon entering the exhibition. On one side there is a rotting cows head and a fly zapper, and on the other a big box that I would only imagine to be filled with maggots. This piece is really interesting, the mix of life and death is just so. James and I decided that it was, indeed a real cows head rotting away in there, the smell was awful. My stomach's churning just thinking about it. It really was rancid.

And if this particular piece wasn't enough to get your gag on, the piece adjacent to this would.
Yes, its Mother and Child Divided. It's a mother cow and her young cut in half and preserved.
I had to suck up a lot of courage to talk between the two halves of the cow. You can't not look at its insides, which are a rank brow colour. I would say that it is as disgusting as it is beautiful.

Among all of this crazy fly zapping, cow cutting craziness, there is copious amounts of Medicine cabinets, cigarette butts, multi-coloured paints and lots of print. And somehow it all works together wonderfully. - Who knew?
I've obviously only spoken about the major pieces in this exhibition, and if you have the chance to go and visit it, I to ally urge you too. It's so worth a look, even if you're not that into art. Its not all poncey portraits and delicate oils. It's like a slap in the face. bold and beautiful.

I'd like to take the time to thank my boyfriend James, for taking me to this. It honestly was one of the best I've been too! I had such a good day, looking at art and enjoying the weather.

Here's a photo of James and I on our day out.