Damien Hirst burns his own art after selling NFTs
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in The Commons
As per the title Damien Hurst has been burning his works of art after selling them as NFTs for $2000 each. The works consist of coloured spots.
I think he could have got more for them if he had written "Merry Christmas" across the top of each one.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-63218704
Good for him he's managed to make money with paintings of dots. I wouldn't mind be in in on that scheme.
Never even heard of him. And then I Googled and read this - "He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List."
And so I almost don't really care. Assuming that he has reached THAT plateau he's THERE what difference does it make even if this is just a statement of a fact that he did it.
Oh no, now I will have to drive all the way over to the party supply store to source another copy of this lost work of art...
Edit: Oh, it's the chopped-up cow guy! I remember him. Glad to see he's moved on to greener... er... pastures...
As long as we're just burning Hirst's and not art that's, you know, good.
Would be better to burn it before imo, but he does have his fans.
I'll have to start doing that... (not).
I'm pretty sure there's a comparison in there about "methane from a cow's rump", and "the creation of crypto-currency". >_>
Better than burning the money on the NFT's
Y'know, as long as he's burning his own art and not other people's, good for him. I'd rather see a weirdo (I mean this affectionately, as an artist) recontextualizing his own work in a way he finds interesting as an experiment than most of the alternative uses for NFTs.
As far as I can tell he went about it in probably the least scummy way possible. He created art that is more or less interchangeable specifically for the project; their value is pretty much exclusively based on having been made by a famous person. He calls the set "The Currency" and they're almost aggressively homogenous, so I think that was the intent. He gave people the choice to give up their NFT and get the physical copy, or keep the NFT and he'd burn the original. If I'm reading this correctly, it seems to have been split almost half and half, with slightly more choosing to trade the NFT for physical artwork.
This is actually a pretty keen-eyed view of the thing. He's saying he himself doesn't know whether NFTs or physical art will be worth more in the future, but he challenged the people buying them to make a choice that is usually not available to NFT holders: if you could choose to have this as an NFT or a piece of physical media, which would you rather have? He probably knows better than anyone else that he could finger paint with a RoseArt gift set on a piece of particle board and someone would pay at least $5k for it, so he's in a unique position to do this.
To me it's considerably different from the people buying and destroying things they didn't make, because those stunts tend to be pulled by someone who is saying, "I'm so confident this will retain its future value that I'll prove the original is superfluous." I don't think I could do that with something I valued at all beyond the amount of money a resale would potentially bring me. It's not meaningless that all over the world thousands of eyes can be on the same digital image, having thoughts and feelings about it--but it's also not meaningless that a physical item can be made by one person and end up in front of a stranger. Even thinking about it abstractly, I feel something about the idea of holding one of these weird little funfetti whatsits or seeing it in person that I don't get from the idea of just owning it (or more accurately, owning the value of it).
Destroying a piece of art to prop up a bet on NFTs is a show of confidence, but if it's not your work and you feel entitled to do it just because you bought it, it's also a sign of disrespect. It's saying the medium doesn't matter, and the artist's choices and interaction with their work are easily discarded if you can sell it for the same price or more. In that view, the artist is little more than a source of pedigree. Hirst seems to have created that dynamic deliberately, which avoids the vaguely mean-spirited, trolling undertones of other art destruction stunts. No one valued these things before he gave them a purpose.
I'm not exactly a Hirst fan, but if the actual point of the art was to reveal something about human behavior--which he says it was--IMO it's a success. I still think this kind of thing is probably not worth contributing to the market over, and I think the world has probably heard more than enough from Earth's most obscenely wealthy people about NFTs. But it's interesting to me how many people who were open to the idea of buying an NFT nevertheless decided they'd rather hold the thing in their hands.
The best art investment is to buy an abstract painting on eBay for $200 and hang it on your wall and tell everyone it's worth $3,000,000.00 .
My view on Art was influenced early on by a play by Ephraim Kishon, which was adapted to TV in Germany in 1986 called "Zieh den Stecker raus, das Wasser kocht" (english title "Take the plug out", literally it should be "Pull the plug, the water is boiling")
Here's a translation of the german Wikipedia entry for that play, as there seems to be no english version:
The shy painter Raphael has little success with his "almost realistic" painting style, which was based on the old masters. Only his girlfriend Dahlia, who is also his model, believes in him.
Then the well-known art critic Kalman M. Kashtan comes into Raphael's studio. He takes no pleasure in Raphael's works until he sees a random construction. This consists of a table on which is a chair with a broken leg, which is prevented from falling over by a Bible; Above that, in turn, is a stool with an electric tea kettle that is currently in operation and is connected to the ceiling light via a socket adapter*.
When Kalman M. Kaschtan, who considers this construction to be consciously created art, enthusiastically asks the title of this work, Dahlia happens to drop by and sees that the tea water in the samovar is boiling. She says to Raphael: “Unplug, the water is boiling.” Kalman M. Kashtan takes Dahlia's reference to Raphael for the title of the work, he is enthusiastic about the constructive symbolism of the artwork.
It's been quite a while since I last saw that play, but IIRC it goes on with Raphael becoming quite famous and selling some of his art, and receiving as answer on how to make even more money "Well, it would help if you would die..."
Compared to the actions of Mr. Hurst above, the one done by Banksy in 2013 when someone (maybe the artist himself) sold some of his works on paper for $ 60.- each in front of the New York Metropolitan Museum is utterly cool. As is the Girl with a Balloon shredding.
Nothing to be said against pictures of Polka Dots, though.. tastes are different... we're all special snowflakes after all..
Nothing more than wrapping paper tossed into the recycle bin.
It reminds me very much of the tests they used to use ( and maybe still use ) for color blindess, where a page of seemingly random dots has a pattern in it if your eyes are able to differentiate all the colors, so not very original.
That's amateur pyromania...
I think it'd be a more interesting and challenging idea if he skipped the NFT part and sold the works while they were on fire...
In that scenario, you have the total commitment to the value of your art being purchased in a timely fashion AND you are probably creating a lot less greenhouse gasses... well, depending on how gassy you are when you get nervous and how nervous you get if it doesn't look like your art is selling soon enough...
But selling an actively burning artwork is stupid idea and extremely rich people love to prove how stupid they are not, by doing really stupid things, so I don't see how it could fail.
Granted you'd probably have to grow a weird mustache (bonus points if you are female) or hop around like a kangaroo while speaking in rhyme to prove how much of a genius you are or something equally brilliant and unusual like that, which is one of the key factors of being labeled as a brilliant artist in the pop art field... once you are interesting enough, anything you make is automatically valuable... until someone more interesting comes along, then you have to start setting s**t on fire to get people to notice you again.
But in the end, no matter how insane or questionable your choices, it all becomes part of the rich tapestry that makes up the fabric of the history of art.
Isn't that why we art?
It's not why I art, because nothing I make is art, but I'm assuming art has something to do with tapestry and making fistfuls of money while hopping around like a kangaroo with a silly handlebar mustache, speaking in Seussian rhymes.
But either way, it's okay if you do a little arson on your own stuff to prove your commitment to the kangaroo bit.
That's true dedication.
By the way, dibs on the kangaroo bit, it's my idea... but I will license it for a low, low subscription price to anyone who is interested in becoming a rich and celebrated artist... and it comes with my exclusive brochure "So You Want To Be A F***ing Artist, Huh?" It includes a complete glossary of art terms you need to know like "Paint Brush" and "Cocktails" as well as a whole section on anxieties you should develop to further your career... And it has a separate section devoted to developing interesting personas or characters with bizarre personality traits that will elevate you "Opening Night Gala" levels interesting in a couple of easy steps.
So if you wanna be successful ORDER NOW.
Please Note: I shouldn’t really have to mention this, but this is satirical commentary, it is not a suggestion that art is a scam or that all crazy rich people are in fact crazy or rich and that all artists just want to be rich and famous or hop around like kangaroos.
It is just a sad, sad attempt at dark humor for those who’ve experienced any of the trials and tribulations of working in a creative field associated with what stupid humans call “art”… not that all humans are stupid, but if you can’t even moderately accept that most of this species is pretty stupid, you are, One- in need of some light reading in the history department and Three, living in denial… in which case I hope you are Egyptian… get it… Da Nile…?
No?
whatever…
Anyway, it’s satirical and not meant to imply anything other than if you start trying to sell your art dressed as a kangaroo or other large hopping marsupial, you owe me fistfuls of cash or else I’ll issue a takedown order against you in the form of a Cricket Bat* to the back of the head while you are enjoying hors d’oeuvres at your fancy opening night reception… also, that’s not a threat, merely a satirical observation of one of the many possibilities that being “interesting” can lead to, which brings me back to my original point about this being satirical and not a wholesale condemnation of the institution of art and art-like stuff….
Furthermore, this also not a suggestion to attempt to dabble in arson or pyromania… pyromania is serious disorder and while it is extremely entertaining, it should not be be practiced or engaged in without proper training or appropriate tools, nor should it be used as a legal defense unless you have some papers from a doctor who specializes in that sort of thing.
So… satire… which as defined by that kid Webster who used to write dictionaries, is “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues”.
Okay… maybe just ignore half of that definition and focus on the humor and topicality part.
*A Cricket Bat, because it makes a more satisfying “Thwap!”… traditional baseball bats are too dull sounding and not as entertaining.
Also I should probably mention that hitting people with cricket bats is bad and violence in general is probably bad too and you shouldn’t do that because it’s bad and being bad is bad and this is all bad satire… so don’t hit people with cricket bats.
Unless they are certified zombies and they have expressed a specific desire to imminently consume your brains and you have no other choice…
Then I suppose it’s okay, but please consult a legal professional first before allowing yourself to become involved with flesh eating zombies or any activities that may generally feature zombieism or flesh eating undead.
It does feel like he was not disposing his tra... I mean, ART (!) properly:
I think the word You were aiming for was sophisticated. Because a Cricket Bat is hereditary British and thus sophisticated by nature. On the other hand, using some smoked codfish might serve the same purpose, while being slightly less damaging.
I'd only use codfish if were partly frozen... then you get the damage, and the "Thwap!"... it's the best of both worlds, plus you can eat it later thus disposing of any incriminating evidence... the only real downside is it's hard to wield effectively and you have to be a true cod-master to use it in combat or to smite thine enemies whilst they are distracted by hor d'oeuvres.
Yayoi Kusama has been doing "polka dot art" since the late 60s. If you haven't heard of her, google her. She's a remarkable and fascinating artist. Her artwork really is an experince. There are a few documentaries about her life. From what I can remember, she's still making artwork at 93.
Not bad... have an educational video as a reward and another one.