ArtSake

 While Wall St. takes a nose dive, the pockets of British artist Damian Hirst have just been filled with newly minted greenbacks thanks to record shattering sales of his work at Sotheby’s.

He has been sued on copyright infringement. He has a reputation of being a piranha that rips off others original ideas and exploits them to his own financial advantage. Some see his work of animals submerged in vitrines of formaldehyde with revulsion, sadness and evidence of a lack of creativity. To others, Hirst is considered a prolific and influential artist with extraordinary business acumen reshaping the way in which art is created and sold. No matter what your opinion of him, and there is plenty to go around, there’s no doubting that the Brit bad boy has a 127 million dollar smile. His gamble to bypass the traditional gallery system and sell his work directly via the auction house has paid off. I for one though will keep my beloved dog far, far away from his studio and its gallons of carcinogenic embalming fluids.

And speaking of large sums of money, the Museum of Fine Arts is reported to have met its 500 million dollar fundraising goal.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 3:05 pm and is filed under arts criticism, sculpture, trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.