Planet Crypto: Nah then! Damien Hirst gets t’matches out on his non-fungibles
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 catch up with him about his latest work…
Ey ooop. How do. Damien Hirst here. Yorkshire’s greatest artist*.
Eee ‘appen I’ll go to foot of our stairs.
Now then, I just burned a 1,000 of me old 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 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 chuffin’ box a t’Swan Vestas…? It’s reyt hard.
So I had a change of tack. Instead of torching me old fella, I’ve decided to create a new collection of burned ‘art’ instead. Basically, any old codswallop 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. Then flogged picture of it 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 left me ham and cheese panini in t’Breville toaster for half hour too long as like
Hey presto: I got a genius idea.
Got an uncooked ham and cheese panini – took a snap of that and pretended it were the burned one – flogged the pic for a £20,000 as an NFT.
Nice.
It only cost me three quid as part of a Meal Deal, an’ all. And to increase the value I called it ‘The Mendacity of the Open Grave Whilst Destabilising 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 cack 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 ruddy fortune.
I might call it the ‘The Naked Flame’s Diamorphic Commensurate Antidisestablishmentarianism
of the Photosynthesis’, or summat.
Reyt then. Sithe!
* 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.
READ MORE: Damien Hirst torches £10m original artworks after selling them as NFTs
https://www.cityam.com/planet-crypto-nah-then-damien-hirst-gets-tmatches-out-on-his-non-fungibles/