Damien Hirst burns artwork after collectors opt for his NFTs instead

LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Britain’s Damien Hirst began burning hundreds of his artworks on Tuesday after collectors opted to keep their non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain-based assets that represent their digital images, instead.

Hirst, who found fame at the center of the young British artist scene in the 1990s, launched his first NFT collection “The Currency” – 10,000 NFTs equivalent to 10,000 original artworks depicting colorful spots – in July 2021.

Collectors had to choose between keeping the NFT, which reportedly sold for $2,000, or trading it for the physical artwork. About 5,149 chose the latter while 4,851 chose the NFTs, according to London’s Newport Street Gallery.

It said that artwork for non-traded NFTs would be destroyed and vice versa. Hirst told his Instagram followers on Monday that he would burn 1,000 works of art on Tuesday.

The Turner Prize winner and assistants live-streamed the event, using tongs to place individual pieces stacked in piles in fireplaces in the gallery as onlookers watched.

“Many people think I burn millions of dollars worth of art, but I don’t, I complete the transformation of these physical artworks into nfts by burning the physical versions,” Hirst wrote on Instagram on Monday.

“The value of digital or physical art that is difficult to define at best will not be lost, it will be transferred to nft as soon as they are burned.”

The artworks, created in 2016 using enamel paint on handmade paper and each numbered, titled, stamped and signed, will be burned until “The Currency” exhibition closes on October 30.

NFTs surged in popularity last year as crypto-rich speculators sought to cash in on rising prices, but sales volumes have fallen more recently.

Hirst, 57, is known for his divisive works, which include “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,” consisting of a dead shark floating in formaldehyde, and “Mother and Child, Divided,” a cow and calf in two parts.

He is also known for his spot paintings and “For The Love Of God”, a platinum cast of an 18th century human skull covered in diamonds.

When asked how he felt burning the works, Hirst said: “It feels good, better than I expected.”

($1 = 0.9022 pounds)

Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian, additional reporting by Will Russell; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise

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