Damien Hirst’s Greetings from the Gutter/Avoiding the Inevitable is a sculpture comprising two large glass-and-steel tanks set up with gas masks, rubber tubing, infusion bags, needles, and other hospital equipment. Hirst has described the installation as an immortality machine, designed with “everything you need in order to live.” Throughout the 1990s, Hirst became internationally known for filling such glass tanks with dead animals suspended in formaldehyde as reminders of our mortality. These tanks comment on the efforts of art and science to stave off the inevitability of death.

Hirst first created Greetings from the Gutter as the cover art for pop-musician Dave Stewart’s 1995 album of the same title. Hirst reminisced that Stewart, formerly of the band the Eurythmics, told “about his drug and near-death experiences. Living in the fast lane and making a lot of money very quick, he got all that trash that goes with it and survived.” The rock and roller’s luck for cheating death is memorialized in this medically themed artwork, while the eighth track on Stewart’s album commemorates Hirst’s distinctive tanks. Titled “Damien Save Me,” the song goes: “Damien save me / And be my guide / Sooner or later / We’re all gonna die / … / Cut me in half / And I’ll let you see / What this whole wide world / Has done to me.”