Damien Hirst’s latest attention-grabbing art antic is burning hundreds of his paintings that he’d already sold. Is this a self-inflicted act of cultural vandalism? Perhaps, but there’s a method to the madness.
Last year, Hirst launched the Currency, a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The artist offered purchasers a choice: either they could choose to keep the unique, digital artwork (NFTs, unlike other digital objects, have specific ownership) or they could cash it in for a physical object.
Of the buyers, 4581 decided they’d rather own the works in NFT form. So earlier this week Hirst, clad in a metallic silver boiler suit, began the process of destroying their physical counterparts by feeding them into a fire.
“A lot of people think I’m burning millions of dollars of art but I’m not,” Hirst told the BBC. “I’m completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions.”
Hirst’s move is a well-established meme within the NFT community, many of whom believe that the digital asset is exactly the same as the physical asset. Just last month, a Mexican entrepreneur did the same thing with a Frida Kahlo sketch. A 2006 Bansky artwork was burnt in January. A crypto collective that bought an original copy of a rare art book version of Frank Herbert’s Dune for US$3 million because it mistakenly believed it would give it the rights to make a film adaptation — it’s a long story — originally planned to burn it too.
Beyond a love of flashy stunts, the motivation for these burnings is that some NFT proponents believe that minting (lingo for creating) an NFT of a physical object means that the digital asset has all the value of the real world thing.
There’s a kernel of truth in this. A collector’s baseball card isn’t valuable because of the ink and paper, it’s expensive because it’s rare and sought after. If you get rid of the ink and paper and make it into an NFT, it follows that it should have value.
This rather extreme view doesn’t account for the fact that there can be value in an object’s physicality. While similar, they are not the same object. But last year, crypto artist Tascha put this to the test when she minted an NFT of a physical diamond that she bought for US$5000 and destroyed it.
Tascha’s NFT sold in September 2021 for 5.5 ether — about US$6600 today.
… and nothing of artistic value was lost.
The KLF were way ahead on this in the 80’s, andt burnt money as performance art to critique consumerism rather than burn art to participate in it. I’m happy for Hirst to burn his work, but NFTing someone else’s work then destroying it is grotesque. Anyway, my only interest now is the inevitable hackers stealing them, or hosting company collapse losing them.
The Chapman Brothers, who are actually quite talented despite some real crap (look up “Hell II” online for a good example) claimed to have bought works by Hitler and zuzzhed them up for an exhibit at White Cube in London circa 2001. It was called “If Hitler was a hippy we’d all be happy now”. Even a cursory glance showed they were all by different, amateur artists and probably quite recent. There was maybe one genuine “Hitler”. Almost none of the art critics spotted the joke (except Brian Sewell) as they fell over themselves to praise the brothers for undermining the dominant art ethic. Or something.
A collector’s baseball card doesn’t earn its value from merely being rare – the condition of the card is important. Similar to the worth of an antique…or a car.
I bet that, in the near future when power supplies are limited and the internet is more off than on, she will wish she still owned an actual diamond.
Maybe she does 🙂
crowdfund buying diamond -> switch with zirconium -> video destruction nft -> profit!
They are scammers, not idiots
?NFTs are a girl’s best friend..?
Damien Hirst. England’s answer to Jeff Koons. There’s a point where rich artists can’t lose money, no matter how stupid the project.
Hard to believe but next to Damien Horst, Jeff Koons looks like an Old Master.
Meh. Cash in it’s original form was just an NFT for gold.
NFTs of the Queen with the price printed right there on the front.