REPORT: HIRST 'THE CURRENCY' WORKS BACKDATED

 

At least 1,000 paintings that the artist Damien Hirst said were made in 2016 were created several years later, the Guardian can reveal.

Hirst produced 10,000 of the paintings, each comprising colourful hand-painted dots on A4 paper, as part of a project called The Currency that was born from the idea of creating a form of money from art.

The year 2016 was inscribed on the works beside the artist's signature. Hirst and the authorised seller of the paintings repeatedly said the physical works were created in 2016.

When they went on sale in 2021, in a high-profile event at which buyers were given the option of acquiring a permanent digital record of the paintings in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT), Hirst said it was the most exciting project I have ever worked on by far.

The initial sale brought in about $18m. At the time, Hirst said of the project: It comprises of 10,000 NFTs, each corresponding to a unique physical artwork made in 2016.

The paintings were sold via a single authorised seller, Heni, run by Hirst's business manager. It said at the time that the works were created by hand in 2016.

However, five sources familiar with the creation of the works, including some of the painters who put the dots to paper, told the Guardian many of them were mass-produced in 2018 and 2019.

Their accounts suggest at least 1,000 – and possibly several thousand – paintings in The Currency series were made during the two-year period. They were produced by dozens of painters hired at Hirst's company Science Ltd at two studios, in Gloucestershire and London, in what one source described as a Henry Ford production line.

Hirst conceived of The Currency paintings, which are reminiscent of his much larger spot paintings, in 2016. He has described starting with just a few hundred. And then when I looked at them I thought they are kind of unique but they all look the same; they are handmade so they look like a print but they are not a print, he said. And then I thought, ‘What if I made these and then treated it like money?'

To read the complete article, see:
At least 1,000 Damien Hirst artworks were painted years later than claimed (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/may/22/damien-hirst-artworks-painted-years-later-currency-artist)

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
THE CURRENCY BY DAMIEN HIRST (https://www.coinbooks.org/v24/esylum_v24n32a30.html)
UPDATE: THE CURRENCY BY DAMIEN HIRST (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n31a27.html)

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