Damien Hirst Will Have The World Seeing Spots. Really.

It’s been said that art has the power to bring people together. It can also be quite divisive, but as with music and film, visual arts can unite people across continents. That may just be the underlining principle behind Gagosian Gallery‘s latest worldwide exhibition that features twenty-five years worth of spot paintings by world-renowned artist Damien Hirst.

“The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011” will show across all eleven Gagosian Gallery locations in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva, and Hong Kong. Beginning January 12th and ending February 18th, gallery patrons on three continents will get a chance to see some of the 300 different paintings on loan from more than 150 lenders in 20 countries.

And if you’re a Hirst fan who can’t see the works in person (though Gagosian Gallery is clearly making every effort to give people the chance), the exhibition coincides with the release of The Complete Spot Paintings 19862011, a comprehensive catalogue of all spot paintings made by Hirst, from his first spot on board in 1986 to his most recent 2011 spot painting that contains 25,781 one millimeter spots in 25,781 different hues.

The Gagosian Gallery exhibition precedes the first major museum retrospective of the British artist’s work at the Tate Modern in London. Come April 2012, Tate Modern visitors can hope to see work from throughout Hirst’s career, including (we hope) “For the Love of God”, the diamond-encrusted skull sculpture that may be the artist’s most famous work. And, of course, Tate Modern patrons will also still see spotsso many spots.

Photo: Damien Hirst, “Prochlorperazine”, 2009