Museum of Fine Arts Houston: End Game

I was thinking about my trip to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston this morning and I couldn’t help but start laughing as I recalled my experience with the Damien Hirst sculpture, End Game. I happened to stumble across the acclaimed sculpture as I was trying to hunt down the Latin American art exhibit at the museum. I had already heard quite a bit about the work, mainly because the MFAH seemed to embark on a press junket once the piece was donated. Anyway, the entire experience was a little surreal to me probably because I’ve seen the image in print so many times before. What also made the experience even better was that I was with someone who wasn’t particularly enthralled by the work. The best moment? When Joe (the person that I was with) noted that he could think of a ways to represent mortality without incorporating human skeletons.


Naturally, I ignored Joe's sentiment and instead opted to take pictures near the work rather than debating it. What says sophistication more than blowing kisses to the skeletons?? ;)


On a more serious note, the really interesting thing about this piece in particular was the traditional Hirst use of the skeleton paired with the medicine cabinet aesthetic that he has also made famous thorough such works as Pharmacy, see right. End Game really becomes a hybrid of both of these common themes by incorporating ideas of consumerism, mortality, medicine and the idea of treatment, illness, and sexuality (the skeletons are male and female). End Game is unique compared to other medicine cabinet sculptures and it is more compelling than the Hirst works displaying only skulls and skeletons.