Over 5 years in the making, The Currency is the latest project from one of the giants of the contemporary art world and as always, Hirst remains a disruptor. From a diamond incrusted human skull (For the Love of God) to the life cycle of flies (A Thousand Years), Hirst has always pushed the boundaries of what contemporary art can be. The Currency is no different. In a world of consumerism and right now in the UK at least, the possibility of financial collapse, maybe it’s the right time to question currency in its basic form. What really is money? Our lives are driven by the conviction of the paper in our wallets and the numbers in our accounts. Our credit.
Derived from the Latin credito and meaning belief or trust, credit was first used in English in the 1520s. But it was the Industrial Age that laid the foundation for our modern-day financial systems of loans, credit cards and debt.
Hirst’s latest project plays the role of testing that belief and trust. Could a production of 10,000 original works of art function as a currency?
Hypnotic, brightly coloured dots, dance across the thousands of sheets of handmade paper, hanging meticulously in the Newport Street Gallery in London. A dot painting is not an original image for Hirst, he has been painting dots for the last 25 years, but the scale of this project is impressive. The room has a kind of vibrancy and vibration.
Each artwork exists alongside a digital counterpart (NFT). These non-fungible tokens were the first part of the experiment. Who would believe in the new digital currency, parting with pounds for code on a blockchain. The deal you make with Hirst is that after a year of holding on to your NFT you can exchange it for the physical artwork. A real, physical work of art. Individual, handmade, titled, watermarked with the artist’s own face, foiled, stamped and signed. Or if you choose to remain digital, your counterpart artwork will be destroyed.
The physical artwork already has a calibre on today’s art market. Hirst is one of the wealthiest living artists, with his works setting and breaking records at auction. This makes a physical piece by him a safe bet as an investment or currency. A trust in the Damien Hirst name.
The belief lies in the NFT. This new, unregulated arena has made some impressive monetary gains in the last few years. Not only in the art market (Beeple at Christie’s) but with celebrity endorsement such as Bored Ape collaborations with Snoop Dogg and Eminem. But where there are great gains there are also great losses, especially for a new type of currency. The opening of this latest exhibition marks a sort of closing of this project but by no means an end to the experiment. 5,149 NFTs were exchanged for physical paintings, leaving 4,851 on the blockchain. Which will hold a higher value in the months and years to come? Real or digital?
As part of Frieze Week the 4,851 corresponding original paintings not exchanged are being destroyed. In an almost performance art style, Hirst himself burned the first 1,000 on the 12th October 2022 in the Newport Street Gallery. Fashioned in chrome, fire retardant trousers, surrounded by 6 fires, each individual artwork was captured on camera burning down to ash. Damien Hirst pushes the boundaries once more, moving art into new digital spaces and challenging the belief that art is sacred or is it now just another commodity.
The Currency runs until 30th October 2022 at Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, London.