For the Love of God

More about the book

This book is a creative guide to the making of arguably the most extraordinary art object to be made in the 21st century. Published to accompany the 2007 exhibition Damien Beyond Belief at White Cube, London, it gives a fascinating pictorial insight into how Hirst's diamond skull piece "For the Love of God" was conceived and produced. Illustrated with candid behind-the-scenes photographs by Johnnie Shand Kydd, the book includes a number of preparatory drawings by Damien Hirst and a fold out image of the diamond skull. Accompanying this is an essay by the art historian Rudi Fuchs, who "The skull is out of this world, celestial almost. I tend to see it as a glorious intense victory over death." A number of leading experts in the fields of archaeology and dentistry have also contributed detailed studies on the diamond skull, including analyses of its age and ancestry.