"Gone but not Forgotten" by Damien Hirst. The golden skeleton of a mammoth that sits in the courtyards at the Faena Miami Beach Hotel

Title: “Gone but not Forgotten”

(2014)

Artist: Damien Hirst

📍Location: Faena Hotel

Miami Beach, FL

"Gone but not forgotten" by Damien Hirst || Photo by Nadia Bouzid

"Eternal Remembrance: Delving into Damien Hirst's 'Gone but not Forgotten'"

Located within the sunlit courtyards of the Faena Miami Beach Hotel lies a captivating work of art that intrigues passersby. Created in 2014 by the renowned artist Damien Hirst, "Gone but not Forgotten" is a profound piece that embodies a fusion of history, mythology, and human curiosity.

At its core, this artwork features a majestic skeleton of a mammoth, intricately gilded and enclosed within a colossal gold tank. Hirst's reputation for creating bold and contemplative works is embodied in this installation, which carries layers of symbolic depth.

The sculpture's outward appearance, with the mammoth skeleton adorned in gold, exudes an air of grandeur and mystique. However, there's a deeper narrative woven into this creation, as Hirst himself elucidated, "The mammoth comes from a time and place that we cannot ever fully understand. Despite its scientific reality, it has attained an almost mythical status."

Hirst's intention was to challenge our perceptions of the past, science, and legend. Through the transformation of the mammoth—a relic of extinction—into an ethereal entity within a shining gold tank, he provokes contemplation on mortality and the passage of time. The juxtaposition of lifelessness and opulence encourages viewers to consider existence and humanity's struggle against the inevitability of death.

The artist's commentary on mortality is profound. He intentionally alters the mammoth, a symbol of antiquity and loss, into an object that inspires reflection and hope. "It's such an absolute expression of mortality," Hirst remarked, "but I've decorated it to the point where it's become something else." In this act of artistic metamorphosis, he confronts death while striving to craft a more hopeful narrative—an acknowledgment that though something may cease to exist, it remains unforgotten.

Faena Hotel's Beach Parasol [ Design] | photo by Nadia Bouzid

Hirst explained of the sculpture: "The mammoth comes from a time and place that we cannot ever fully understand. Despite its scientific reality, it has attained an almost mythical status and I wanted to play with these ideas of legend, history and science by gilding the skeleton and placing it within a monolithic gold tank. It's such an absolute expression of mortality, but I've decorated it to the point where it's become something else, I've pitched everything I can against death to create something more hopeful, it is gone but not forgotten."