Smoke rose from artist Damien Hirst's London gallery on Tuesday, as 1,000 of his signature"spot" paintings went up in flames. Thousands more will be reduced to ashes before the month is out.
At Tuesday's event, held the day before the Frieze London art fair, the exhibition space — with its long central workbench, the gallery assistants dressed in matching orange jumpsuits, and Hirst in a pair of silver trousers held up by braces — resembled a Santa's workshop of destruction. Despite the somber connotations of art-burning, the artist was jovial while destroying his work — smiling, making faces and chatting with journalists packed into the press corner.
Damien Hirst began burning thousands of his own artworks at London's Newport Street Gallery on Tuesday October 11.Produced in 2016, the original paintings were all signed, numbered and given unique titles. No two works are identical, and no two dots in a single painting are the same color. In July, after a year of trading, owners were able to"redeem" their NFTs. Most of the 5,149 collectors who opted to trade in their tokens have now been sent the paintings. The rest of the physical artworks will be burned at Hirst's private gallery between now and the end of October.
See the worries in my eye. Let him burn them.
His 'London Gallery' looks like an upmarket fireplace shop. Also, on a purely malicious personal level, stay away from the cakes, Hirst.
Artist?
Best bit of work he's ever done! More, more!!
He calls those polka dots 'art'?
What an overrated elitist hack. Is that because he couldn’t sell them?
I take it these are works he wasn’t able to sell.
it does not 'explore the value of art' because it is not art, in any way, shape or form. Art is about the presence of Quality. There is none.
So DamienHirst sells paintings as NFTs then burns originals so NFT is only version. Yet his burning is deemed newsworthy? WTF? He’s already sold it and made money! Also, it’s bloody pocadot, hardly an original masterpiece