Damien Hirst - A Thousand Years (Tate Modern, London)

(Apologies for the bad quality pictures, I had to take them without bringing attention to myself [which is hard with a DSLR] as there is no photography allowed in the gallery) 

A life cycle held within a box; the glass vitrine confines a minimal white box that houses maggots, which later develop into flies to feed on the severed cow’s head on the vitrine floor. 

Many of the flies meet their end on the the over hanging insect-o-cutor (second photo); others survive and continue the cycle. 

Hirst takes the principle of bringing real objects into the gallery a step further in this work, creating a literal enactment of birth, death and decay.

‘It was the first time I’d ever made anything that had a life of its own… Something that I had no control over’