Damien Hirst forgoes Big Gallery, Wins big
The NYTimes’ Carol Vogel has been able to squeeze three days worth of coverage (Day one, two & three) regarding the exclusive Sotheby’s London auction of Damien Hirst works titled, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever. The 223 works were all bought by the auction’s close for a grand total of $200.7 million, exceeding estimates and setting a single-artist auction record.
Vogel reported on the 14th that “Sotheby’s expects the two-day sale to total about $200 million,” and now claims, “the auction house’s high estimate [was] $177.6 million.” Setting the math and hyperbole aside, Mr. Hirst’s ability to cash in on this clearinghouse of a retrospective speaks to his bankability in an otherwise dismal present for the financial world.
Famed Warhol obsessive Jose Mugrabi, who knows something about markets, may be most prescient in claiming:
Today people believe more in art than the stock market. At least it’s something you can enjoy.
More than something to enjoy, investing in a Hirst (As he claims that “he would no longer be making spin or butterfly paintings and that there would be far fewer dead animals and almost no dot paintings.”) helps support this contemporary art bubble and create a repository of value much more stable than the paper issued over the last few years by the rapidly collapsing world of Wall Street.
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