Damien Hirst and the museum power of his MMCA Seoul retrospective

From the AD HOC NEWS Art Desk » Award & Prize Desk - The editors cover exhibitions, auctions, collections, prizes and artistic positions. Published: August 20, 2026 · Last checked: August 20, 2026, 1:45 PM

Damien Hirst remains one of the most institutionalized figures of contemporary art, and the Seoul retrospective Damien Hirst: Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible at MMCA has underlined how deeply museums continue to engage with his work. The show ran from March 20 to June 28, 2026 at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul and assembled around 50 works spanning more than four decades.

The MMCA Seoul retrospective

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul framed Damien Hirst: Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible as the artist’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Asia, covering installations, sculptures and paintings from early works to recent pieces. According to the museum’s exhibition page, it focused on themes of death and immortality, faith in science and medicine, and the entanglement of artistic value with market logic.

The exhibition architecture at MMCA Seoul split the show across several floors and the MMCA Studio, emphasizing how Hirst’s work moves between clinical display and theatrical staging. The museum’s Korean-language material highlighted sponsorship from Korean pharmaceutical companies, underlining how the artist’s long-running interest in medicine cabinets and pills intersects with real-world corporate structures.

Museum power and visitor numbers

Yonhap reported that Damien Hirst: Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible drew 541,889 visitors to MMCA Seoul between March 20 and June 28, 2026, averaging 5,645 visitors per day. This places the show firmly in the blockbuster category for a national museum, showing that the combination of spectacle, controversy and historical perspective remains attractive to a broad audience.

Coverage from South Korean media emphasized that the exhibition brought together iconic works such as For the Love of God, the diamond-encrusted skull from 2007, and pieces from the Natural History series featuring animals preserved in formaldehyde tanks. The show also included more recent paintings, including the Cherry Blossoms series, positioning Hirst’s painterly output in relation to his more widely known sculptural and installation work.

The work core and methods

Damien Hirst’s practice has developed through distinct work groups that repeatedly return to questions of mortality, faith and value. The Natural History vitrines with animals suspended in formaldehyde, the pharmaceutical cabinet works, the spin paintings and the spot paintings all structure his oeuvre as serial investigations rather than isolated objects.

Hirst’s use of industrial fabrication, scientific display aesthetics and delegated production has tied his work closely to debates around authorship and the art market. In the context of the MMCA retrospective, these strategies were presented less as provocation and more as a long-term, coherent engagement with how contemporary societies organize knowledge and belief.

Where the artist stands now

Against this backdrop, Damien Hirst holds a consolidated position as a museum-anchored figure whose work continues to be reassessed through large-scale institutional shows, even as debates about spectacle, ethics and market power remain central to how his practice is received.

This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.