I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE … 2005. “REDUCED” EDITION.

London: Other Criteria/ Booth-Clibbon Editions, 2005
26 x 21cm, unpaginated (c. 400pp+). Boards plus pictorial dust jacket. Inserts including fold out poster of the naked Hirst family, sheet of stickers, transparent overlays with silkscreened sliced up lambs and ribbon place holder (with plastic cross). The third edition (in fact ) of Hirst’s amazing first artist’s book – albeit in a much smaller format than the original but complete with the original paper folds, pop-ups, window pulls and other gimmicks that make almost every page a small surprise. That said it is clearly influenced by Warhol’s Index book which used similar tricks forty years before to dazzle the reader – but the whirl of the numerous works and bold plastic colours of the pharmacy works confuse the eye at first before the whole settles down into a coherent whole – the impression is finally that of a science text book rather than a precious fine art publication but that was Hirst’s genius – sterilising life and death for public display. Fine. Complete.