Damien Hirst – The Currency
Damien Hirst’s spot paintings remain one of the most recognizable motifs in contemporary art, known for their perfect circles in a grid format. Since its first iteration in 1986, the series has seen many variations, but it wasn’t until 2016 that Hirst dispensed the rules for his Colour Space paintings, and allowed the work to become more organic. The works of The Currency evolved from this exploration, with the spots appearing like particles or atoms.
The Currency marries one of Hirst’s most generative bodies of work to his lifelong fascination for technology and materiality. Ever disrupting art world conventions, the artist's use of NFTs is an important development in his ongoing interest in notions of ownership and collecting.
The Currency challenges the concept of value through money and art. Each of the unique 10,000 hand painted works are launched as NFTs on the blockchain. Each artwork is uniquely titled and numbered (1 - 10,000). The titles are generated from machine learning being applied to some of the artist's favourite song lyrics. The collector decides how to use their art/currency.
Medium: Paint on handmade paper
Date: 2016
Dimensions: 20 x 30cm
Sign: Handwritten signature by the artist, a watermark featuring a portrait of the artist, a hologram featuring a portrait of the artist, a unique handwritten title and date, a watermark featuring the Hirst logo, an embossed stamp featuring the Hirst logo and microdot containing a portrait of the artist.
