Selections from The Last Supper
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Mar. 13, 2024 - Sep. 27, 2020
“Selections from The Last Supper” presents eleven works from the eponymous series of thirteen large-scale prints (1999) by Damien Hirst (British, born 1965). These label-like images are derived from pharmaceutical packaging––a theme Hirst has employed since the late 1980s––where he uses the names of foods traditional to working class British cafe culture, such as “beans and chips” or “steak and kidney” to replace the names of various medicines. Hirst transforms the food into his own brand by adding decorative logos containing variations on his name. In the pared-down color and form represented in these works on paper, Hirst also acknowledges the minimalist concept of medical packaging and its link to the visual history of Minimalism.