Leading British artist Damien Hirst has made two copies of his latest works – one is a painting, the other is the NFT. He gives investors the choice of buying one; the other he destroys. So if buyers buy the NFT version, he burns the painting. Planet Crypto managed to speak to him about his latest work…
Ey ooop. How do. Damien Hirst here.
Yorkshire’s greatest artist. [1]
Eee ‘appen. I’ll go to foot of our stairs.
Now then, I just burned a 1,000 of me crappy paintings, to increase the value of their NFTs.
I know, it’s dead mental, right? But I got two grand for each!
Chuffing Nora…
Well I got thinking… if people are prepared to pay good money for me to burn me work… I might as well torch me back catalogue and flog it as NFTs, tha knows.
So I tried. But wasn’t that successful, tho.
It were right easy burning me dotty paintings, and that.
Cos canvas is right flammable.
But then I tried to burn me shark-in-a-tank.
Happen I forgot that Formaldehyde is a highly combustible, didn’t I? Fair singed me eyebrows, I did. Ee ba gum.
And no matter how hard I tried to toast that skull-with-all-the-diamonds on it – it were bleedin’ hard. Who knew that diamonds melt at 700 degrees centi-wotsit? You try and get that heat with a chuffing box of Swan Vestas…? It’s right hard.
So I had a change of tack. Instead of torching me old b*ll*cks, I’ve decided to create a new collection of burned chuffing ‘art’ instead. Basically, any old shit that I burn, I’m going to flog as an NFT.
So, me first work is called ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in a Packet of 20 Peter Stuyvesant.’
Basically it’s a picture of a used cigarette butt.
I made it during me ciggie break this morning. Took a photo of me cigarette before I chuffin’ lit it.
Smoked it.
Flogged the pic for $2,000 as an NFT.
Two grand for a ciggie break? ..Tasty!
Struggled for some ideas after that.
Then at lunch I created a work of genius by accident.
I burned me ham and cheese panini in me Breville toaster.
Hey presto: I got a genius idea.
Got an uncooked ham and cheese panini – took a picture of that. Pretended it were the burned one – flogged the pic for a £20,000 as an NFT.
Nice.
It only cost me £3 as part of a Meal Deal, an’ all.
And to increase the value I called it ‘The Mendacity of the Open Grave Whilst Destabilizing the Nihilist Dream Trope.’
Yeah, I don’t know what it means, either.
But the critics went mental for it.
(A tip for budding artists: Give any old shit a pompous name, and the critics think it’s Art. Tasty)
Right. I’m off. It’s Bonfire Night in the UK soon. I need to get busy selling NFTs of me unlit bonfire for a chuffing fortune.
And call it the ‘The Naked Flame’s Diamorphic Commensurate Antidisestablishmentarianism of the Photosynthesis.’
Tasty. I’ll see thee.
[1] After the Bronte Sisters, David Hockney, Dame Barbera Hepworth, Henry Moore, Sean Bean, the Human League, Pulp, the Arctic Monkeys, Patrick Stewart and Bobby Knutt.
