Damien Hirst review – just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

Newport Street Gallery, London
Shark tanks, cow’s heads, feasting flies and pill bottles … Hirst’s death-obsessed early work hits home just as hard now disease is all around us

There was widespread disgust a couple of years ago when Damien Hirst unveiled paintings consisting of thousands of butterflies trapped in acrylic. All I can say is, if you share that revulsion at the use of dead animals to make art, you may want to avoid this spectacular survey of his early work.

It begins with a shark sliced in sections, each preserved in its own tank of formaldehyde. But that’s nothing, even if you’ve noticed this appears to be a juvenile tiger shark, killed before it could breed. I say appears – the gallery just calls it a “shark”. The double freezer in the next room is where things really get creepy. Peer inside and dead eyes stare back at you from a closely packed heap of severed cows’ heads. Like a frightened child, I had to ask a staff member if they are real. They are. A small herd has been slaughtered just for this. What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Damien Hirst: End of a Century is at Newport Street Gallery, 7 October-7 March.

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