Damien Hirst has given collectors the option between his 2016 oil paintings on paper and his 2021 non-functional objects. If they choose the NFT version, the physical copy will be destroyed, and vice versa. wealthiest artists.
According to the Sunday Times Rich List, Damien Hirst was the wealthiest artist in the United Kingdom in 2020, with an estimated net worth of $384 million. The wealthiest artist has announced that beginning next month, he will burn thousands of paintings from his currency project.
Which Hirst has provided collectors with the option of purchasing either the 2016 oil paintings on paper or the 2021 NFTs. If they choose the NFT version, the physical copy will be destroyed, and vice versa.
The special proposal
The artist made his NFT debut with the series “The Currency.” These were issued in 2021 to correspond with his 2016 enamel on handmade paper spot paintings. The original applicants were able to purchase the 10,000 NFTs from “The Currency” collection for $2,000 each, but in recent months they have been resold on the secondary market.
Similarly, the physical artworks are numbered and signed by the artist. Now, Hirst has requested that buyers of his NFTs retain the digital version or exchange it for the physical work. If they choose to retain the NFT, the associated painting will be torched. Beginning on September 9, the works to be destroyed will be displayed at Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery in London.
Wealthiest Artists, the paintings will be destroyed daily for the duration of the exhibition, culminating in an October closing event during Frieze Week. Through this project, the artist compares and contrasts physical and digital art.Â
In an interview with The Art Newspaper, Hirst stated, “This project investigates the boundaries between art and currency — when art transforms and becomes a currency, and when currency becomes art.” It is no accident that governments use art on coins and currency notes. They do this to convince us that money exists. It is difficult to believe in anything without art.”
The wealthiest artist’s journey
Graduate of the prestigious Goldsmiths College in London with a degree in fine art, Hirst was one of the most prominent Young British Artists (YBA). British advertiser and collector Charles Saatchi was one of the principal organizers of the group’s 1988 exhibition, Freeze, which took place in an empty Port Authority warehouse in London. Saatchi was also the first to recognize his talent. Â
One of his first major international exhibitions was at the 1993 Venice Biennale, where he displayed sections of a cow and calf in separate vitrines for the work Mother and Child Divided.
Throughout the years, he has created a number of animal-based formaldehyde series works. As with his iconic spot paintings, also known as The Pharmaceutical Paintings, which he has been creating since 1988, the collection has received both praise and criticism.
In 2007, the Turner Prize winner set a record for the most expensive work of art sold by a living artist when his Lullaby Spring in June, a three-meter-wide steel cabinet containing 6,136 pills, was sold for $19.2 million.
Evolving the art market wealthiest artists
The British artist, renowned for his provocative artwork, has also made a number of astonishing art market moves. This would have been the highest price ever paid for a single work by a living artist.
In 2008, a week after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Hirst sold more than 200 works directly from his studio to Sotheby’s for £111 million. During the sale, he eliminated the role of the gallery’s middleman by means of this unprecedented initiative.
In 2020, the New York-based art collective MSCHF purchased a signed copy of one of the artist’s famous spotted paintings, L-Isoleucine T-Butyl Ester, for $30,000. They then cut out and sold separately each of the 88 dots for $480.Â
