Damien Hirst Tetrahydrocannabinol For Sale

About this work

Tetrahydrocannabinol is an aquatint etching created by Damien Hirst in 2004, printed on 350gsm Hahnemühle paper in an edition of 115. The work belongs to Hirst's celebrated Spot Prints series, in which the artist adopts the naming conventions of pharmaceutical chemistry to title artworks composed of uniformly sized, evenly spaced colored circles arranged across a white ground. Tetrahydrocannabinol — the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis, more commonly known by its abbreviation THC — lends the work a cultural charge that sits in characteristic Hirst-ian tension with the print's formal austerity. The aquatint process lends these Spot compositions a tonal richness and surface warmth distinct from other print media — the intaglio technique allows for gradations and a velvety depth of tone that elevates the spotted motif beyond the purely mechanical or decorative. The Hahnemühle paper, with its substantial 350gsm weight, provides an archival substrate appropriate to the long-term significance of this body of work. Hirst's Spot works function simultaneously as investigations into color theory, critiques of pharmaceutical culture, and meditations on seriality, chance, and aesthetic pleasure. The naming of works after drug compounds deepens the dissonance between the rational system of nomenclature and the sensory pleasure of the color compositions. Damien Hirst is among the most celebrated and debated artists of his era, whose practice has engaged relentlessly with the structures and vocabularies of science, medicine, and consumer culture. The Spot Paintings and Prints — among his most widely recognized bodies of work — were produced from 1986 onward and have been exhibited in institutions worldwide. Tetrahydrocannabinol, produced in 2004 as an edition of 115, represents an important example of the series, combining the visual elegance of the Spot composition with the loaded cultural connotations of its pharmaceutical title.