Art Review: Hirst, Globally Dotting His ‘I’

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Roberta Smith

Damien Hirst's "Urea-13C," at Gagosian at 522 West 21st Street

NEW YORK - Thanks to the Gagosian art empire, a ludicrous number of paintings by Damien Hirst are on display right now: 331 of Mr. Hirst’s implacably cheerful “spot” abstractions spread among Gagosian’s 11 galleries in 8 cities on 3 continents. The show is titled “Damien Hirst the Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011.” The good news, of course, is that they’re not all in one place. And none involve dead animals, maggots, encrusted diamonds or vats of formaldehyde. How bad can it be? Well, very bad at times, and yet, at others, not bad at all, in fact rather good. By far the best New York installation is at the Gagosian on West 21st Street in Chelsea, where a mere 14 paintings ring one enormous space and function as a kind of Hirst primer. [link]