VISUAL ART
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WILLIAM HUNTER TO DAMIEN HIRST: THE DEAD TEACH THE LIVING Exploring the connections between art and science
The Dead Teach the Living is a student-curated display on the subject of death in art courtesy of the University of Glasgow and Glasgow School of Art’s MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) course. On the face of it, this show’s biggest draw is the public debut of Damien Hirst’s 2007 sculpture Necromancer, until now held in Anthony d’Offay’s private collection. Although Hirst’s critical stock has sunk in his post-YBA era, there remains something very powerful about his visceral and unl inching meditations on death. Necromancer is at once sinister and serene. The eyes are drawn immediately to the twin human foetuses in jars alongside each another; one whole and one bisected.
intended for medical use only: a cast of the womb of a woman who died near the end of her pregnancy, as commissioned by Scottish physician William Hunter circa 1770; an etching of three dancing skeletons created for anatomical study by 16th century Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius; a i rst edition of Nobel Prize-winning Spanish neurology pioneer Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s 1895 text Elements of Histology and Micrographic Technique.
Alongside these, other pieces include Scott Rogers’ A Call to the Old Ones, a i lm of a working lark mirror – used to hypnotise humans and confuse birds during hunting – alongside jars containing a starling brain and a human eye.
His evocation of fragile life is powerful when measured against the shining gynaecological implements whose proximity to the specimen jars brings home a vivid correlation between emotional loss and the medical processes of death. As with the cold functionality of Hirst’s piece, the most sinister works here are those
Everything sits well together and is vividly thought-provoking, with the power of both scientii c and artistic exploration well represented and balanced. (David Pollock) ■ Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, until Sun 5 Mar 2017.
2 Jun–1 Sep 2016 THE LIST 97 2 Jun–1 Sep 2016 THE LIST 97