Shock-artist Damien Hirst – who stunned the art world by selling a diamond-encrusted skull last autumn for $100 million – hopes to grab another $200 million auctioning formaldehyde-pickled animals, ripped-off butterfly wings and spin art.
Sotheby’s is drawing rich collectors to the autumn auction in the hope that Hirst will be the next Andy Warhol, whose soup can posters printed by the thousands sell for upward of $10 million.
Hirst, the 42-year-old bad boy of the contemporary art world, is causing even more of a stir with this auction because he’s cutting out art dealer middlemen, and selling directly to collectors.
Dealers take 40 to 60 percent of an artist’s sale, but in this case his two big dealers in New York and London, Jay Jopling and Larry Gagosian, gave their blessings to his radical steps to shut them out. Gagosian is even bidding on some works.
Hirst is selling pieces he cranked out in the past two years: 233 lots similar to his earlier works, ranging from animals preserved in formaldehyde, spot paintings, spin paintings, butterfly wing collages, skulls and plenty of bizarre bling.
Sotheby’s said the most important piece in the collection is “The Golden Calf,” a calf pickled in a glass tank of formaldehyde, with a large gold disc balanced on its head and its hooves cast in solid 18-karat gold. It’s on the block for a high of $25 million.
Sotheby’s gets its customary commissions for the London auction Sept. 15-16, entitled “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever.”
Richard Shone, editor of The Burlington Magazine, the fine arts periodical, told the Times of London that the auction was the latest in a long line of publicity stunts that were threatening to swamp Hirst’s critical standing as an artist.
David Mugrabi, a dealer-collector, said Hirst was enjoying an elaborate conceptual joke. “He’s seeing if he can get away with murder.”