Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings (Gagosian Gallery, W. 24th St.)

Thinking of Damien’s spot paintings, I recall five lines of a Beatles song:

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire;

And though the holes were rather small,

They had to count them all.

Now they know how many holes

It takes to fill the Albert Hall…

Followed, of course, by the distinctive confession: "I’d love to turn you on!"

Damien Hirst has the same level of profundity as the Beatles — roughly 1000th the wisdom of Jean-Paul Sartre, but with better melodies. (And there are melodies in his spot paintings — they seem to sing, like aerial angel-souls.) And Damien would love to turn us on. (In fact the cover of that Beatles album was created by an English artist, Peter Blake, who was the Damien Hirst of his time.)

Hirst’s first name is very 60s, the title of a Herman Hesse novel that everyone read and didn’t understand in 1969. (Recently I finished The Journey to the East, and almost wept with spiritual sympathy.)

The spots are maximal minimalism, which is exactly correct for 2012.

Could one write a book about the spot paintings? Certainly. A good book, actually. And I’dI would like to write it. The first 30 pages would be the history of polka dots, including diagrams for polka dances, the wrapping of Wonder Bread, and pictures of Little Dot, the curious comic book character of my childhood — a brunette seven year old girl with a big head who continually wore dots (and always the same dress: red with black circles).

Or one could write a 1200 page book of interviews with the 150 artists who actually paint the works. Because the spot paintings are collaborations — perhaps the largest painting-on-canvas collaboration in history!

Everyone I speak to about the spot paintings hates them. Personally, I refuse to give Hirst the pleasure of disliking his work — which begs so fervently to be despised. And I did actually enjoy walking around amongst them, especially the giant ones, which made me feel like a salamander in a toddler’s playroom.

One painting in the gallery is only a single spot (I remember it as orange) which is actually too large for the canvas, slightly spilling over! I find myself remembering it, as I lie in bed in the morning, after dreaming of France. It’s not just a spot painting, it’s a portrait of a spot.