Dimensions: support: 910 x 710 mm
Copyright: © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Well, isn't that curious? My first thought is: meditative. It’s so small, a tiny, pulsing galaxy in the center of all this white. Editor: This is Damien Hirst’s, “Circles in the sand,” held here at the Tate Collections. I’m drawn to the spiral; it’s a potent symbol of life, death, rebirth—the eternal return. Curator: Right! There’s something almost childlike about it. Like a kid playing with a Spirograph. Editor: Absolutely, but consider the wider implications of the vortex. Hirst, intentionally or not, taps into age-old concepts of cyclical time. Curator: It's funny how a simple doodle can carry so much weight, isn't it? Editor: Indeed. A reminder that even the simplest forms can be portals to profound depths.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hirst-circles-in-the-sand-p13055
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This is one of the twenty-three etchings that comprise the first volume of two portfolios, In a Spin, the Action of the World on Things I and II. Each etching was made by the artist in London 2002, printed on 350gsm Hahnmuhle paper, proofed and editioned at Hope (Sufferance) Press, London and published by Charles Booth-Clibborn under his imprint, The Paragon Press. There are sixty-eight sets of prints, numbered 1–68 on the colophon page, and six proof copies. Tate’s copy is the second in the edition. Each set is accompanied by a colophon page and presented in a box with an original spin painting in household paint on the cover and the title and artist’s name printed on top. In addition to etchings similar to those in the first volume, the second volume of In a Spin... includes a photograph of the night sky that Hirst took using a long exposure, recording the movement of the stars in the sky caused by the earth’s rotation, and contributing to the notion expressed in the words: the Action of the World on Things. The artist first coined this phrase in 1999, when he was explaining the origin of his spot paintings (see AR00498), differentiating two strands of his work: ‘an involvement with death and decay, and ideas and life: the action of the world on things exists somewhere, and the colour exists somewhere else. And it’s fantastic.’ (Quoted in Damien Hirst and Gordon Burn, On the Way to Work, London 2001, p.119.) In the event, the imagery of In a Spin, the Action of the World on Things I and II unites these two strands.
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