But such a charge seems ludicrous, considering we’re looking at a man who made himself the world’s richest artist – for a time – by turning his every move into a global media event. A bit thicker set than in that video, Hirst still cuts a dash in silver trousers and gauntlets as he directs the Burn Event, the climax of his The Currency project, which will see approaching £10 million worth of his paintings torched in daily immolations before the work and its accompanying exhibition close on 30 October.īut was the whole thing just a publicity stunt, designed to bag headlines and wind up his critics? It has been, predictably, condemned as such from the moment it was announced in July. At a time when the national mood had been dampened by endless financial crises, Hirst’s sheer punky audacity gave British culture the shot in the arm it needed.Ĭut to today, and Hirst in his 2022 incarnation – a short, balding 57-year-old – is calmly feeding pieces of his own art into the flames of a glass-fronted furnace. You can currently see him as a spiky-haired 23-year-old on the BBC Two documentary Sensationalists, moving through the crowds at the opening of his 1988 exhibition Freeze, a show that made it clear that a new energy and enterprise were afoot in the staid London art world. Back in his student days at London’s Goldsmiths College, he made a thunderous impact on the London art scene with a show that would one day be credited with launching the world-changing YBA phenomenon. All rights reserved, DACS 2022)ĭamien Hirst has always had an extraordinary instinct for picking his moments. Damien Hirst burning his artworks (Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
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