From November 30 to February 2 the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow will be holding an exhibition of works from the collection of Damien Hirst.

      The British artist started collecting works of art in his youth: as a student of the Goldsmiths College he exchanged his works for works by his friends. Gradually the collection of Damien Hirst was being replenished with paintings by Francis Bacon, Richard Prince, Alberto Giacometti, and Richard Hamilton.

      It is remarkable that there are two subjects prevailing in the artist’s collection. The first of them is death, which is tackled upon in the works by Peter Blake, Steven Gregory, and Sarah Lucas. Gloomy motives of their works stand in stark contrast with the paintings by Banksy, Marcus Harvey, Michael Joo, and Sean Landers – the artists who actualize wild life, which is the second main subject of Damien Hirst’s collection.

      Amalgam of the banal and the grandiose, the pessimistic and the cheerful, the classical and the modern – all these opposites very well convey the essence of the exhibition.