|
The
Last Supper is a set of
thirteen screenprints meditating on illness, death,
food, art, religion and consumerism.
Each
depicts the packaging graphics for a pharmaceutical
drug. Hirst
has appropriated the style, branding and dosage information
for each, simply reworking the design slightly.
The manufacturer’s name has been replaced by
his name and the product names by traditional British
supper dishes: beans and chips and cornish pasty etc…
They
are a reminder of the changes in the retailing of medical
products and how we can now purchase medicines at supermarkets
alongside our mushroom pies and sausages.
One could say that we consume these without consideration
about their effect on our bodies, sometimes to alleviate
medical problems caused or exacerbated by the over consumption
of processed food.
The
title of the work, large scale, portrait format and
number of prints in The Last Supper clearly refers
to religious painting.
The thirteen prints represent Christ and the
twelve apostles, although which is which is unclear.
It can be read in terms of the consumption of
food and the last sacrament as well as Christ as the
great healer with the same miraculous powers as those
we attribute to these drugs.
The Last
Supper can also be interpreted as the condemned
person’s last meal or to the medicine we take in the
final stages of life for the drugs are used for the
treatment of HIV, heart disease and cancer.
This
series also has strong visual references to Pop Art,
particularly Andy Warhol’s prints of food and domestic
products. It
is worth noting that one of Andy Warhol’s last paintings
was a monumental version of Leonardo da Vinci’s The
Last Supper.
|
