Damien Hirst Thousands of his works will be burned on Tuesday after the owner refused to trade the paintings for non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Created by British artist and art collector 10,000 unique pixel art With a collection of 10,000 NFTs in 2016, A unique digital token that can be traded online.
Hearst’s first NFT collection, ‘The Currency’, gave buyers the option of exchanging an NFT version (worth £2,000) for a physical artwork.
After the exchange period ended in July, just over half of the collectors chose to exchange for authentic artwork painted in enamel paint on handmade paper, with 4,851 deciding to keep the NFT version.
Hirst, reportedly Britain’s richest living artist, vowed to destroy all original artwork That people have decided not to trade virtual tokens.
As a result, he will burn thousands of paintings (worth nearly £10 million in total) at London’s Newport Street Gallery from Tuesday afternoon.
According to the gallery’s website, Hirst “sees ‘currency’ as a work of art in which people participate by buying, holding, selling and exchanging the work.”
The event will be held at Freeze London, an international art event in London.
In a post on his Instagram account on Monday, Hurst said:
“A lot of people think I’m burning millions of dollars in art, but I’m not. NFTs By burning the physical version. ”