Henry Moore's Daughter Says Damien Hirst Sets Art Back by 100 Years

Christie Chu

Mary Moore, the daughter of formidable British sculptor Henry Moore, says super-star artist Damien Hirst has set back art by 100 years, reports the Guardian. The artist's daughter was presenting a major survey of her father's work at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

"What he [Henry Moore] did was come along and take it out of the frame in a very weird way," Moore told the Guardian, "I think Damien Hirst put it back in the bloody frame and art is all now in the frame and what you forget is how radical it is that it's not in the frame."

Moore also spoke about how Hirst and other artists set art back because their works rely on titles, wall text, and the (presumably gallery) "cubes." Her father's work, on the other hand, she said, is more instinctual and multifaceted. "Art has gone back into a frame, it has gone back to being a contextual, narrative thing, which is actually where we were with the pre-Raphaelites."

She also told the newspaper: “We don't look at things, it's terrifying, it's happening more and more and more. People see two-dimensionally on their phones and laptops and iPads; they don't see shapes or understand form."

The exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park explores how Moore's work interacts with land. On view will be more than 120 indoor and outdoor works, as well as the artist's personal sketches and artefacts of which will be curated by Moore herself. The exhibition location is dear to the Moore family for two reasons: Henry Moore was born 15 miles away, in Castleford, in 1898, and during the 1970s he played a significant role in turning the Yorkshire Sculpture Park into what it is today.