Damien Hirst

Que Muero Porque No Muero, 2005

Morior Quia Non Morior

Household gloss, butterflies, pills, paraphernalia, scalpel and razor blades on canvas

213.4 × 5 cm / 84 × 2 in. (Ø × D), framed

Courtesy of Bastian Gallery

CHF 600 000

Approx. EUR 645 000 · USD 745 000

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Damien Hirst, Que Muero Porque No Muero — primary image

About the work

The title borrows the refrain of Teresa de Ávila's sixteenth-century poem Vivo Sin Vivir En Mí: "I die because I do not die," the mystic's longing for a life beyond this one. Hirst gave the work its Spanish title for the Mexico City exhibition The Death of God, retitling a canvas in which real butterflies, emblems of the soul and of beauty's brevity, are set into a field of red household gloss alongside pills, blades and paraphernalia: mortality and its remedies held on a single surface.

Details

Inventory no.2215

SignedVerso upper right in black felt-tip pen »Damien Hirst«; verso centre on stretcher bar in black felt-tip pen »DHirst«

InscribedVerso centre left in black felt-tip pen »Damien's new title “Que Muero Porque No Muero” for Mexico Show The Death of God«

DatedVerso upper left in black felt-tip pen »2005«

Exhibition history

Damien Hirst — Void, Galerie Bastian, Berlin, 10 Nov. 2007 – 9 Feb. 2008, cat. 7, ill. p. 43.

Damien Hirst — Oranges and Lemons, BASTIAN, Berlin, 24 June – 30 Sep. 2023, no cat.

References

»Que Muero Porque No Muero« refers to the poem »Vivo Sin Vivir En Mí« by Teresa de Ávila [1515–1582].

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