Damien Hirst art makes record prices in auction

[Simonp]

An auction of art works by Damien Hirst has smashed top estimates to bring in a record total of £70.5m ($125m), with still more works for sale.

The British artist has abandoned the traditional method of selling through dealers and galleries, going straight to the auction house Sotheby's instead.

It is the first time an artist has sold a substantial body of work this way.

Sotheby's say the sale - which runs over two days - has set a new record for a sale dedicated to one artist.

Hirst has specialised in displaying animals preserved in tanks of chemicals.

Among the lots were The Golden Calf - a bull in a tank of formaldehyde, with its head crowned by a gold disc - which sold for £9.2m ($16.5m).

The Kingdom - a tiger shark also in formaldehyde - which sold for £9.6m ($17.2m). It had been estimated at about half that price.

The Black Sheep with the Golden Horn, another animal in formaldehyde, sold for £2.6m, within its £2-3m estimate.

The auction, entitled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, was the first of three that will sell a total of 223 art works by Mr Hirst.

The second and third sessions are due to take place on Tuesday.

Mr Hirst has called the auction a "mini retrospective" and "probably the most amazing show I've put on".

BBC Entertainment reporter David Sillito said that opting to sell all this art in the hurley-burley of the sale room is an unusual move, but that the artist says galleries can be snobby and elitist.

A spokesman for the auction house Sotheby's said: "The extraordinary body of new work to be showcased at Sotheby's is among his best yet - ambitious, exquisite and incredibly powerful."

The previous record for a sale dedicated to a single artist was set in 1993 for works by Picasso, which went for a total of $20m (£11m)

[heartofdavid]

Mark Ronson and Nick Rhodes were the guest DJs at the auction party.

As for the art...not my thing.

[Bern]

I found a dead squirrel while out walking the dog I cold force into a wine bottle and pickle it in vinegar, any offers?

[heartofdavid]

Wonder if Sotheby's has any cans of Piero Manzoni's "art" left?

[godisinthesilences]

lol yes this a weird offering being called art... gotta love it. Duchamp for the new millenium. HA HA

[Chet]

thank you simonp for this post.
i adore the work of Damien.
together with John Currin, Richard Prince, Lucian Freud and Cy Twombly,
Mr Hirst is just worth all the money people can put up.

[Astronaut]

thank you simonp for this post.
i adore the work of Damien.
together with John Currin, Richard Prince, Lucian Freud and Cy Twombly,
Mr Hirst is just worth all the money people can put up.

I'm not sure Chet whether you are being ironic or not. Do you admire the work of Martin Creed too?

[Chet]

thanks for asking.
I have to say I'm very fed up with installations and conceptual pieces.
I want paintings. I want painters. the 80s and the 90s have been too full
of the superficial parts of what's really the essence of creativity.
I know i'm sounding a bit hard here, and of course there are exceptions.

[godisinthesilences]

thanks for asking.
I have to say I'm very fed up with installations and conceptual pieces.
I want paintings. I want painters. the 80s and the 90s have been too full
of the superficial parts of what's really the essence of creativity.
I know i'm sounding a bit hard here, and of course there are exceptions.

ha ha thank those that decided post modernism should be considered an art form.

I will agree with you I miss traditional elements of beauty. I don't find giant cibachrome images of a praying mantis eating a tomato art but whatever....

[Astronaut]

thanks for asking.
I have to say I'm very fed up with installations and conceptual pieces.
I want paintings. I want painters. the 80s and the 90s have been too full
of the superficial parts of what's really the essence of creativity.
I know i'm sounding a bit hard here, and of course there are exceptions.

ha ha thank those that decided post modernism should be considered an art form.

I will agree with you I miss traditional elements of beauty. I don't find giant cibachrome images of a praying mantis eating a tomato art but whatever....

Agreed and agreed!

Martin Creed for those who do not know won the Turner Prize back in 2001 for an "installation art work" entitled " Lights Switching on and off in a Room Every X Seconds" or something of such nature. It was literally lights going on and then, switching off. Great! Genius! Along with his other 'masterpieces': a blob of blutack on a wall and 5 pieces of sellotape stuck on a wall etc, etc. I kid you not. But what I fail to understand is this - how on earth do these people manage to sell this stuff and for such ridiculous prices?