Giclée print on Cotton Smooth Rag

Hand-signed and numbered on the front

56.25 x 44 in

143 x 112 cm

Ed of 459

Damien Hirst’s Civilisation Falling, H17-2 (2024) offers a poignant counterpoint to its companion work, Civilisation Rising. Here, the grand facades of modern architecture are softened, even overwhelmed, by cascades of blossoms and bursts of color. A path lined with tulips and wildflowers leads the viewer forward, while confetti-like splatters rain down from a painted rainbow above - suggesting both celebration and disintegration. The orderly grid of the city dissolves into organic chaos, as nature asserts itself over human-made structures. At once utopian and elegiac, Civilisation Falling reflects Hirst’s ongoing fascination with cycles of creation and decline, beauty and fragility, urging us to consider what endures when systems collapse and life reclaims its ground.