Up at Dawn

DAMIEN HIRST (B. 1965)

Up at Dawn

incised with the artist's signature, title and date 'Up at Dawn Damien Hirst 2014' (on the reverse)

glass, PVD stainless steel, steel, painted aluminum, bismuth, keys and cast painted pills

22 x 28 1/8 x 3 1/8 inches (55.9 x 71.4 x 7.9 cm)

Executed in 2014.

PROVENANCE:

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner, 2016

NOTES:

Born in Bristol in 1965, Damien Hirst is one of the most influential and controversial British artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He first rose to prominence in the late 1980s as a leading figure of the Young British Artists (YBAs), a group known for their provocative and concept-driven work. Hirst quickly became known for pushing boundaries in art, particularly his use of unusual materials like whole animals preserved in formaldehyde, pharmaceuticals, and surgical instruments. His fascination with death, desire, science, and belief systems has made him both a cultural lightning rod and a defining figure of contemporary art. 

A key part of Hirst’s early work is his Medicine Cabinet series, created in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. These installations resemble minimalist bathroom shelves lined with pharmaceutical products, meticulously arranged like modern reliquaries. These works explore the way Western society places faith in science, medicine, and consumer culture, literally replacing religious and spiritual talismans and symbols with brightly packaged and branded pills. In this way, the medicine cabinet acts as a secular altar, elevating everyday medications into objects of devotion and dependency. They reflect on our complex relationship with health, control, mortality and the seductive promise of a quick fix.

Up at Dawn, executed in 2014, is part of Hirst’s later Pill Cabinet series, which continues and hones in on the themes of the Medicine Cabinet series. The work consists of a blue PVD stainless steel and glass medicine cabinet housing 345 hand made polyurethane resin Viagra pills, each spaced precisely one inch apart on clean, evenly spaced shelves. The visual repetition of the iconic ice blue pills against the slick, cold vibrant blue structure creates a minimalist rhythm that recalls both scientific order and obsessive ritual. Unlike the original medicine cabinets filled with a variety of drugs, Up at Dawn is focused and specific, honing in on a single well-known pharmaceutical, transforming it into a symbol of both power and vulnerability.

The cheeky title Up at Dawn is laced with irony and layered meaning that reference not only the effects of Viagra but also themes of desire, aging, masculinity, and the human impulse to resist time. The sterile presentation is both beautiful and unsettling, highlighting how something meant to restore vitality becomes part of a system of control, dependency, and even identity. As with much of Hirst’s work, the piece walks a tightrope between reverence and critique. It forces viewers to confront their own beliefs about health, sex and the pursuit of permanence in a world that is ultimately defined by change and decay.

Since 1987, over 90 solo exhibitions have taken place for the artist worldwide, and Hirst has been included in over 300 group shows. His work features in major collections including the British Museum, London; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.;  Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Broad Collection, Los Angeles; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Fondazione Prada, Milan; and Museo Jumex, Mexico, among many others.