Damien Hirst — Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)

Created in 2000, Damien Hirst’s Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) distills one of the most defining strands of his practice: the translation of scientific language into an instantly legible visual system that sits between seduction and unease. Emerging from the cultural climate shaped by the Young British Artists and Hirst’s own investigations into life, death, and the mechanisms that mediate human experience, this work belongs to his broader exploration of pharmacology as contemporary iconography—where medicine becomes both symbol and mirror of modern belief.

With its clinical precision and hallucinatory charge, the composition invokes the tension at the heart of Hirst’s output: a museum-grade balance of conceptual rigor and visceral impact. The title references LSD not as provocation, but as a lens on perception—an emblem of altered consciousness and the fragile boundary between the measurable and the felt. In this sense, the print operates as a cultural document as much as an artwork, capturing the era’s fascination with chemistry, transformation, and the aesthetics of the laboratory.

Offered here as a signed and numbered lithograph from a strictly limited edition of 300, the work carries clear collectability within Hirst’s graphic oeuvre, supported by transparent auction provenance: an example sold at Christie’s in March 2024 for €23,800, underscoring active secondary-market demand for authenticated, editioned works from this period. For collectors focused on blue-chip contemporary art with institutional relevance and sustained liquidity, this is a compelling acquisition at the intersection of cultural significance and investment awareness.