School: The Archaeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity,

and the Search for Knowledgeby Damien Hirst

Lever House E. 54th St. & Park Avenue New York

By Carol Vogel Published: November 12, 2007

Never mind that the world financial markets are in turmoil, or that Sotheby's had a very rocky auction night last Wednesday. A rich artist and his developer patron proved this weekend that excess endures. Saturday night, when the shrouding was removed from Lever House's lobby in midtown Manhattan, viewers confronted a veritable Noah's Ark of roadkill - 30 dead sheep, one dead shark, two sides of beef, 300 sausages, a pair of doves - that the British artist Damien Hirst describes as his most mature piece. The installation, on view through Feb. 16, was commissioned by the real estate developer Aby Rosen, who owns Lever House, the Seagram Building and the Gramercy Park Hotel, and by Alberto Mugrabi, a Manhattan dealer. Rosen also happens to be one of the leading U.S. collectors of contemporary art. The two have jointly purchased Hirst's installation, titled "School: The Archaeology of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity, and the Search for Knowledge," for $10 million for the Lever House Art Collection. In 2005, the developer asked the artist if he might be willing to create a work of art for Lever House's all-glass lobby, which has been a frequent site of temporary art installations. For Rosen, such commissions are a way of calling attention to the landmark building at Park Avenue and 54th Street, which his company, RFR Holding, bought in 1998."It's a great way to make the building more visible by showing great art," he said, adding that he enjoys seeing how different artists relate to the space. One afternoon last week, as he supervised crew members unwrapping the frozen sides of beef, Hirst said, "The sketch took 10 minutes, but it has taken two years to make this."Purposely provocative and often disturbing, the artist is perhaps best known for "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," a shark submerged in a tank of formaldehyde that is on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Last summer, Hirst exhibited a $100 million human skull cast in platinum and covered with 8,601 diamonds that attracted thousands to the London gallery White Cube, where it was installed in an all-black room. Both works seem modest by comparison with his latest stunt. Lining the entire lobby will be some 15 medicine cabinets (a past theme for Hirst) filled with thousands of empty boxes and bottles with labels for antidepressants, cough medicine and other drugs. The 30 sheep are lined up in row after row of formaldehyde-filled tanks, evoking docile schoolchildren in a classroom. Submerged in a giant tank 12 feet, or 3.7 meters, tall are two sides of beef, a chair, a chain of sausages, an umbrella and a birdcage with a dead dove. Hirst describes it as an homage to Francis Bacon's 1946 "Painting" at the Museum of Modern Art, which depicts cow carcasses suspended in a crucifix shape. Hirst said the installation - which cost $1 million to assemble - is in fact a nod to a host of modern artists. "We've got everybody in here," he said. There is Dan Flavin (the strips of fluorescent lighting); Warhol (the notion of repetition, as in the rows of dead sheep); Joseph Cornell (the boxes encasing the dead animals); Jannis Kounellis, who uses live birds in his work; and René Magritte, who painted an egg in a birdcage. All the components, including the 500-plus gallons of formaldehyde, were flown in from England. Hirst said he bought the sheep from a butcher and the shark from a supplier, both of them in Cornwall. "We didn't kill anything - everything was destined for food," Hirst said. Despite the over-the-top decadence of Hirst's work, he revels in details. He designed a red stencil that he used randomly to stamp the sheep as though they were branded. The chair submerged in the formaldehyde tank is fashioned from resin but resembles well-worn leather; he designed 20 clocks that will run backward and adorn all the lobby windows."It's my flock," said Hirst, surveying his handiwork in the lobby. "An installation without any walls, only glass."