Monster or genius?
Hirst is really impossible. We see that the shark in formaldehyde, the cow and her calf in the same liquid, the diamond skull, the Doha mega-fetuses or the tarred flies of the Prada Foundation were not yet sufficient to define his poetics as a brutally and brazenly innovative artist.
For animal rights activists he is a monster, for art collectors a genius. I lean towards the former, although there is genuinely (perhaps satanic?) brilliance in his work.
When I visited the Fondazione Prada gallery with my young grandchildren in November 2019, Hirst's disgusting tar flies are the "stuff" that stuck with me the most. A futile speciesist massacre from the Hague Tribunal.
The most suitable music seems to me this: this for the poor flies.
I am amazed - not at Bertelli, but at Miuccia, a person of great class. I think Miuccia can support Hirst for the artist's sincere commitment to humanitarian causes as the latest initiative for Save the Children.
Maybe it's my particular sensitivity towards animals; to the boys, with me at the Prada Foundation, the "Lord of the Flies" made little difference, they felt the journey much more labyrinthine and sensory by Carsten Höller, a scenography that would look good in Big Fish di Tim Burton.
The instinct for business
Like her compatriot JK Rowling, Hirst has an innate instinct for business. Inclination which is certainly not a defect and not even to be blamed in an artist.
What has Gascon Damien Hirst come up with now?
In fact, decided to mint coins. However, unlike central banks that fail to do so, Hirst has decided to mint banknotes and cryptocurrency at the same time, in the form of an NFT (Not Fungible Token). Yes, them again!
His new project is called, in fact, “Currency”. Snapshots are already circulating where he is seen in the company of a smiling Mark Carney, the Canadian banker and former governor of the Bank of England. Both are holding pieces of colored dot paper in their hands.
The theoretical layer
"The Currency” is a very complicated project, distributed on several levels, like a video game, and above all it is built around the interweaving of material and immaterial.
I'm not sure I was able to understand it in all its articulations. In any case, I'll try to describe it to you, naturally with the help of the Financial Times (FT) which has dedicated a large report to “The Currency”.
First, however, I will dwell on the layer of aesthetic theory which aims to "stilt" this "experiment" (in Hirst's own words) to inscribe it in the territory of art.
As the FT points out, the British artist is fascinated by the ways in which art becomes transactional so that it can explore the existential cognition of value, trust and faith.
Hirst is not new to a certain "existential experimentalism": in his previous artistic production he explored the notions of "decomposition, entropy, vanitas and death", as the art historian writes Valentina Sonzogni. Here are the poor animals in formaldehyde and also the Doha project, The Miraculous Journey, sponsored by Sheikh Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, one of the people with the largest portfolio in the art world.
Today Hirst seems rather intent on exploring something else: for example, the possibilities of spreading the work of art through new technologies. He reports the FT that, looking at the Mona Lisa, Hirst says he is "as interested in postcards that reproduce her as in the real thing".
Who could say such a thing, if not Hirst?
So far nothing new
Now the artist has created 10.000 color dot paintings on a sheet of special paper, A4 size. They look like Gulliver's playing cards. These paintings appear identical, but are actually unique. The paper is not only signed and numbered as in fine art reproductions, but treated and watermarked with an embedded hologram and other techniques that make each sheet impossible to copy or counterfeit.
Just like a banknote. In fact it is a banknote. The nickname that Hirst's workshop has coined for these unique pieces is "tenner" (that is, the name, in slang, of a 10 pound note).
Each piece in the collection is associated with a non-fungible token, which can be purchased, upon request, for $2.000 a piece. Certainly not for a tenner! The value of the operation is therefore 20 million dollars. The Doha project also appears to have cost 20 million. At least Hirst doesn't move.
The Currency's NFTs are immediately tradable in the way that we know. So far, business as usual.
…et voilà, the coup de théâtre
A at this point comes the thought worthy of Hirst: two months after the issue The Currency goes out of circulation. At this point, NFT owners have to make a choice. They will have to decide whether to keep the NFT or the physical artwork: NOT they can have both.
If the buyer decides to keep the NFT, or makes no choice, the corresponding artwork will be destroyed (I say destroyed, to the Banksy).
If, on the other hand, the buyer chooses the physical work, the corresponding NFT will be deleted from the blockchain.
But I say: can a record registered in a blockchain be deleted? Here they really have to tell us how they do it. There is no central authority in the blockchain! Plus the record is distributed across millions of computers.
What will happen in the end?
After a few months, therefore, “The Currency” project could consist of 10.000 NFTs or 10.000 paintings, or, much more likely, a mix of both. What percentage of the components of this mix will be is completely unpredictable. This outcome is precisely the most interesting and most awaited aspect by art market observers and operators.
As the London financial newspaper points out, it is a system with multiple provocations. Most obvious, is the challenge facing the buyer, especially those buyers with an investment in mind: Will the NFT or the original Hirst signed artwork be appreciated more? What do you prefer to own? How will the bet be accepted and how many will adhere to it? Hirst cannot help but hope that the majority of people opt for the physical artwork. But then he admits that he would be "thrilling" if they didn't. “It's an experiment,” says the artist.
Art is money
If art has traditionally been considered first of all as a safe haven with an intrinsic value destined not to erode and then as a tradable commodity, the hybrid scheme devised by Hirst reshuffles the cards.
In the artist's vision, physical artworks as well as NFTs can act as a medium of exchange, i.e. as a “currency”.
Art is money,” says Hirst —. Many people have a problem with this dimension which, instead, explains the alchemy whereby a few pounds of materials become an object of potentially immense value.
The artist, therefore, effectively minted coins and the presence of Mark Carney, in video lesson presentation of the project, seems to legitimize this hypothesis.
Perhaps his former fellow central bank governors will feel robbed of one of their prerogatives. But they must understand that where art arrives, no other human activity arrives, not even the finance of states and international institutions.
… and the currency is trust
Says Mark Carney, in the quoted video: All monetary systems are based on trust; in the case of art, there is an additional element of expectation. All societies have given credence to the magical process of art since the beginning of human history. And in today's world the artist's name itself is an essential part of the valuing process.
“Yes, they are a brand,” admits Hirst with false modesty. "I don't know if I like it, though."
Yes, you are a brand, dear Hirst, and for this you have to set a good example with animals, as does The Joker, Joaquin Phoenix. The same consideration also applies to Cattelan dei horses. But the latest work by Maurizio Cattelan, which is called Blind, now at Bicocca it alone deserves the trip to Milan.
While you are traveling on AV to Milan, already from Bologna, you can put this on headphones album of the Durruti Column. He is inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen (a more melodic zinzino).
Before you go
In the May 13 post, Apple and the freedom of choice, we had commented on Apple's decision not to allow applications to track user behavior without their prior explicit consent. Now, two months later, Bloomberg informs us that 75% of iPhone users who have installed iOS 14.5 (the version of the operating system that includes this function) have denied application tracking.
Now advertisers are panicking, he writes Bloomberg, and with them is Facebook. It's great that people are starting to understand the value of the data-identity marriage. So far, nobody seemed to care. Next step is to charge us for the data.
Now we learn that even Google, for the next releases of Android (which have the name of ice cream), is preparing to do the same thing that Apple did. When will the Sleeping Beauty who rests on the Capitoline Hill and in Brussels wake up?
Damien Hirst (left) with the ex-governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, in the video presentation of the "The Currency" project. The person who fans the sheets with the 10 pound notes, just printed, I added (Mario Mancini).
