Damien Hirst Burns His Way into NFT History

Damien Hirst is never out of the news for long, and now it seems the enfant terrible of British art is causing quite a stir by burning his own artwork. Just before the opening of Frieze art fair in London, Hirst burned 4,851 paintings on paper in his London gallery. The event was the final conclusion of his NFT project "The Currency".

via: Damien Hirst's Instagram

In one of the six custom-designed sculptural wood-burning fireplaces at Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery, the artist literally threw work after work of his spot paintings into the fire to complete his highly publicized "The Currency" project. A year ago, Hirst created 10,000 physical works and 10,000 corresponding NFT tokens. Then, exactly a year after buying the artwork, collectors had to make the decision to either keep the NFT version or trade it in for the paper version. Those collectors who opted against redeeming their token, and keep the NFT, ensured that the paper version was burned.

What a weird day,” said the artist, wearing a white protective suit, as he put the first piece, ironically titled 'Totally Gonna Sell You' into the fireplace. “The idea is worse than the reality—I’m actually enjoying it more than I thought," Hirst admitted after placing a few more works directly into the flames.

It has been estimated the works being burned are collectively worth an eye-watering £10 million. A little more than half the collectors decided to keep the paper version as opposed to the virtual one, meaning that 4851 sheets were burned and 5149 associated NFTs were destroyed. After the astounding highs of crypto art sales a little over a year ago, NFTs sales are currently in a bit of a trough which explains why the paper works are currently valued more highly than the digital tokens – of course owing to the extreme fluctuations in the market, this could quickly reverse.

Hirst is not the first to destroy materially existing images in order to create non-fungible tokens. For example, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and collector recently burned a drawing of Frida Kahlo and turned it into an NFT. However, the intentional destruction of a work of art could be considered a criminal offence. And Mexico's national cultural authority has opened an investigation about the incendiary act. At least, Damien Hirst only burned works that were produced in his own studio and for which he owns the copyright.