This is not a Hirst: Bull’s Head Rhyton, Late Minoan (ca. 1450 B.C.), Herakleion Archaeological Museum
For his audacious, dealer-bypassing London auction of 223 new works (total presale estimate: more than £65 million), Damien Hirst has concocted an instant “retrospective” of 2008 creations, which recap his career’s signature styles and motifs—spin art, dots, butterflies and, of course, formaldehyde-preserved beasts. If this isn’t “flooding the market,” what is?
Sotheby’s just-issued press release calls it, “a whole new body of work that covers [i.e., replicates?] the complete range of Hirst’s output and more.” You can see a five-animal morgue among the images in the press release, as well as nine other pieces to be offered. Sotheby’s initial June announcement had only mentioned and illustrated the highest-priced piece—“The Golden Calf,” estimated at £8-12 million, complete with 18-carat horns and hooves.
In a priceless podcast, the indispensable Maev Kennedy of the British Guardian newspaper described Hirst’s new bullish icon as “cocking a snook at the whole art market.” (I’m clueless about British-isms, but that’s what her words sounded like.)
As it happens, I today came across an ancient Hirstian forebear (above), at an exhibition of Minoan Crete objects at the Onassis Cultural Center, New York. But unlike Hirst’s bull, this ancestor was not made from a real bovine, nor were its golden horns crafted from real gold.
The entire Sept. 15-16 auction seems to be “cocking a snook” at art dealers and collectors, who profit from artists’ work by raking in cash from sales and resales. “This time,” as Kennedy observed, Hirst is “going straight to auction himself and getting the money himself.” (Actually, some of the money may be going from the artist to the auction house as a sellers commission, unless Sotheby’s has agreed to limit its take to the buyers premium. And some proceeds are earmarked for various charities.)
Maybe the mysterious “investment group” should consign Hirst’s supposed $100-million diamond skull to this sale, so we can finally find out what it’s REALLY worth!
But does anyone really want to purchase Microshark—an oil painting (actually titled “Bill with Shark”) based on a Jean Pigozzi photograph of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, gazing at a signature Hirst predator? (Perhaps Steve Ballmer will take the bait. Proceeds for this will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)
© Damien Hirst