After selling several non-fungible tokens, Damien Hirst started destroying hundreds of his pieces of art (NFTs). The artist instructed customers who purchased items from his most recent collection to select either the real artwork or the NFT that represented it.
It was explained to those who selected NFTs that the associated physical piece would be lost.
When asked how it felt to burn the pieces, Hirst responded, “Better than I thought. It feels fantastic.”
The artist collected each piece and burnt it in a controlled firebox while wearing matching fire safety gloves and silver metallic boiler suit pants.
The works being burnt are thought to be worth approximately £10 million altogether.
The Currency, Hirst’s first NFT collection, was released last year and consisted of 10,000 NFTs, or 10,000 original works of art.
When purchasing one, collectors had to decide whether to keep the NFT or exchange it for the actual piece of art.
According to London’s Newport Street Gallery, 5,149 customers selected original works of art, while 4,851 went with NFTs.
Buyers were notified that the artworks for the non-exchanged NFTs will be destroyed, and Hirst earlier this week informed his Instagram followers that he would burn the first 1,000 artworks on Tuesday.
According to reports, the NFTs, which showed vibrant spots, went for $2,000 (£1,800) each.
The Turner Prize winner and helpers used tongs to place individual artworks heaped in stacks into fireplaces at the exhibition as spectators watched live on the internet.
Many people believe that Hirst is burning works of art worth millions of dollars, but she is not. “By burning the original physical versions, I’ve finished converting these artworks into NFTs.
The difficulty to describe the worth of art, whether it be digital or tangible, won’t be lost because it will be transferred to the NFT as soon as they are burned.
Enamel paint was used to produce the pieces of art in 2016, which were then each numbered, titled, stamped, and signed.
They will be set on fire up until October 30 when The Currency show closes.
Each piece of art that Hirst torched was first displayed to a camera, which recorded its unique code and kept track of each one as it was burned.
Many people have criticized Hirst for destroying his priceless works of art during a crisis at the expense of living.
Eddy Frankel of Time Out stated, “It’s almost like Damien Hirst is so disconnected from reality that he’s effectively transcended to another plane of existence, populated exclusively by oligarchs and the once-edgy artists they collect.”
The Newport Street Gallery is free and should be cozy with all those $20,000 paintings on fire, so even if you can’t afford to turn on the heat at home, visit there instead.
Hirst gained notoriety during the 1990s Young British Artist scene and is no stranger to what some critics characterize paintings as publicity stunts.
He won the Turner Prize in 1995, and his works have fetched millions of dollars in sales, but he is also one of Britain’s most divisive artists.
Many of his pieces have caused controversy among critics, such as one that depicts a dead shark floating in formaldehyde and another that shows a cow and calf that have been cut in half.
Along with his spot paintings, the 57-year-old is also renowned for “For The Love Of God,” a platinum cast of a diamond-encrusted human skull from the 18th century.
In the digital world, NFTs are “one-of-a-kind” assets that may be purchased and sold just like any other item of property, but they lack a physical form of their own.
Digital tokens can be viewed as ownership documents for tangible or digital assets.
Paintings and other traditional works of art are valuable because they are unique.
However, it is simple and limitless to copy digital files. Using NFTs, a digital certificate of ownership for the artwork may be “tokenized” and trade.
NFTs had a meteoric rise in popularity last year as cryptocurrency-rich speculators looked to profit from surging prices, but sales volumes have since declined.
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