Damian Hirst just burned 1,000 of his paintings and will soon be burning thousands more. British artist Damian Hirst was among the many giants of the art world who burned 1,000 of the same works as him on Tuesday. He has broadcast the event in live streaming on Instagram and is destined to burn thousands more works of art.
This is part of his “Currency” project. It consists of 10000 NFT. Each non-falsifiable token corresponds to a physical painting with its characteristic polychromatic dots, made with enamel paint on handmade paper. The pieces originally sold for $ 2,000, which is affordable compared to what Hirst’s works are famous for.
“A lot of people think it’s burning millions of dollars worth of artwork, but I’m not doing it, I’m converting to NFT by burning physical versions,” Hurst wrote in an Instagram caption. “The digital or physical value of art, which is difficult to define at best, is not lost, it is transferred to the NFTs once mastered.”
One year after purchasing a piece of “Currency”, collectors must make a choice. They accept the painting, which means they will lose the NFT, or hold back the NFT, which means the painting will be burned.
Caroline Goldstein of Artnet News commented: “‘The Currency’ pits Hirst against his old school approach to the new realm of digital art, asking the art market to decide which is more valuable.”
The buyers’ decision was evenly divided, with 5,149 choosing to swap their NFT for the original painting and 4,851 choosing the NFT. The works are on display at London’s Newport Street Gallery and will be burned during Frieze, the London art fair, which runs from 12 to 16 October.
An NFT is a digital identifier used to confirm the authenticity and ownership of tangible or digital objects. It is like a receipt, and its uniqueness makes it precious.
In the contemporary art market, art is traded as an asset and seen as a financial tool, director Nathaniel Kahn said in 2018. NFTs are a new type of asset that can be commodified, but the energy needed to create them has also made them famous for their environmental impact.
Many of the comments on Hirst’s Instagram post about the work on fire were critical. “It is still about money,” wrote one user. “Interesting strategy to minimize the carbon footprint for this collection,” wrote another.
