Demian Hirst and the most valuable art ever created..

Damien Hirst: Beyond Belief

3 Jun—7 Jul 2007
Hoxton Square and Mason's Yard

This major solo exhibition of new work by
Damien Hirst took place at both White Cube
Hoxton Square and White Cube Mason’s Yard,
Beyond Belief was the most significant and
ambitious exhibition of new work by the artist
at that time.

In this exhibition, Hirst continued to explore
the fundamental themes of human existence
– life, death, truth, love, immortality and art itself.


Several works address the complex relations between
art, science and religion. Arguably more than any
artist of his generation, Hirst is preoccupied by the
Western tradition of Christian iconography.
Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain savagely decants the
Saint’s martyrdom into a single tank containing a
black calf, its body pierced by dozens of arrows and
cable-tied to a steel post. In God Alone Knows, a
triptych featuring three flayed and crucified sheep
in three tanks, Hirst re-presents the visceral brutality
of Christ’s death, and yet there is an unexpectedly
quiet beauty in the way the forlorn and tragic figures
appear to float against their mirrored grounds, as if
resurrected. Hirst reconstructs the final phase of the
Nativity in The Adoration.

Recently Hirst organized and auction of his own works at Southeby's and made an
astronomical amount of money, thereby bypassing the traditional gallery position as middleman.


Pre Auction..




Auction..

With global stock markets plummeting, leaving millions worldwide to fret over their jobs and financial futures, news out of a London auction house this week proved there are a choice few who are still financially flush enough to spend outlandishly.

The global financial crisis apparently did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm for British artist's Damien Hirst's latest collection. In a record-breaking two-day event at Sotheby's in London, Hirst convinced buyers to buck the economic times -- to the tune of nearly $200 million.

His show, titled "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever," included an outlandish collection of quirky animals soaked and displayed in formaldehyde -- a natural progression for a man who previously made millions on the sale of a life-size cast of a human skull in platinum and covered in diamonds

The costliest art creation ever..

First we had this announcement...

"Hirst's diamond creation is art's costliest work ever"

• Sean O'Hagan
• The Observer,
• Sunday May 21 2006
• Article history

Compared with the epic works that have made his name - the shark in formaldehyde, the bisected cow. Damien Hirst's work in progress is a small, delicate object:
a life-size human skull. Not just any skull, mind, but one cast in platinum and encased entirely in diamonds - some 8,500 in all. It will be the most expensive work
of art ever created, costing between £8m and £10m.

Unveiling his latest work exclusively to The Observer,Hirst said: 'We have been buying diamonds slowly and have worked out that it will take about eight and half thousand to completely cover the surface of the skull. Hirst, who is in London for meetings with his latest collaborators, Bond Street jewellers, Bentley & Skinner,added: 'The biggest expense will be the 50-carat beauty that will sit on the forehead. That one alone will cost in the region of £3m to £5m. It is certainly the biggest single undertaking by a jeweller since the Crown jewels'. Hirst, 40, who was recently ranked as the most powerful individual in the contemporary art world by Art Review magazine, is reputedly worth in the region of £100m. Creating the world's most expensive work of art, he says, 'will be a lot less stressful than putting a bloody great shark in a tank of formaldehyde'.

Nevertheless, even by his ambitious standards, the diamond-encrusted skull, entitled 'For the Love of God' is a risky undertaking. The cost of making it will inevitably be reflected in the selling price, which could be up to £50m. Then there will be the small problem of security. 'For the Love of God' will be the centrepiece of a forthcoming Hirst show, "Beyond Belief", which will inaugurate Jay Jopling's new gallery, White Cube 3, in London's West End in June 2007. 'The demands of the insurance company will dictate the level of security', said Hirst's business adviser, Frank Dunphy. 'But with a unique project like this you're talking about the kind of security more synonymous with an international airport than an art gallery.' 'I just want to celebrate life by saying to hell with death,' said the artist, 'What better way of saying that than by taking the ultimate symbol of death and covering it in the ultimate symbol of luxury, desire and decadence? The only part of the original skull that will remain wi be the teeth. You need that grotesque element for it to work as a piece of art. God is in the details and all that

'Why, though, is he doing it? 'I've always adhered to the principle that the simplest ideas are the best, and this will be the ultimate two fingers up to death. I want people to see it and be astounded. I want them to gasp. ' But what if it turns out to be more bling than breathtaking? 'If it's vulgar, I'll put it on a chain and hang it round my neck- or I'll stick it on the mantelpiece.'