Damien Hirst exhibition at MMCA attracts 540,000 visitors

An exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) highlighting the works of British artist Damien Hirst has attracted more than 540,000 visitors, the museum said Monday.

A total of 541,889 people visited the "Damien Hirst: Nothing is True But Everything Is Possible" exhibition than ran at the Seoul branch of the museum from March 20 to Sunday, averaging 5,645 on a daily basis, according to the MMCA.

The exhibition, the artist's first solo show in Asia, brought together some 50 pieces of works spanning his 40 years of career, including iconic works like "For the Love of God" (2007), a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with diamonds, and the "Natural History" (1991-) series preserving real animals in tanks of formaldehyde.

By age, visitors in their 20s and 30s accounted for 62 percent, while the number of teen visitors reached a record 12 percent, nearly doubling from the average portion of teen visitors at an MMCA exhibition.

Foreign visitors accounted for 6.5 percent of the total, while the MMCA saw the number of new members jumping more than three-fold during the exhibition.

The MMCA said it is "encouraging" that the exhibition offered an opportunity to the general public to approach Hirst's works, vowing to continue efforts to hold exhibitions featuring the works of contemporary masters from both Korea and abroad.

Yonhap