Damien Hirst, star of the September sales!

Discovered by the advertising magnate and collector Charles Saatchi, the leading icon of the British scene knows the market rules off by heart. He is a strategist in art marketing and is getting himself talked about again by organising an exclusive sale at Sotheby’s.

In September, for the start of the new season, Sotheby’s is preparing to make a big impact by opening the ball with a well-publicised sale of contemporary art. Called “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”, the sale on September 15 and 16 will be exclusively devoted to Damien HIRST, one of the most talked-about stars of today’s art market. The Golden Calf, estimated at GBP8-12m, a monumental installation featuring a bull submerged in a formaldehyde aquarium, with a head crowned by a solid-gold disc, is the star item in a sale focused essentially on the artist’s most recent work. It is the sort of work that could well send his price levels one notch higher.
The sale on September 15 comprises 56 lots, all straight from the workshop with some, like a small painting made from ashtray waste, going on sale for GBP30,000-40,000. Among the artist’s most recent projects to be auctioned for the first time is one of a brand new series of Spot Paintings, with a gilded base, or an anatomical sculpture in Carrara marble. The following day will feature works aimed at new generations of collectors as 40% of the 156 works will be offered for less then GBP 40,000. At these prices, enthusiasts will essentially be fighting it out over small Butterfly Paintings and preparatory sketches.

Damien Hirst, the spearhead of Young British Artists, is no stranger to dazzling performances at auction. In June 2007, he became for a time the most expensive living artist on the market when GBP8.6m (more than USD 17m) was bid for Lullaby Spring, a large metal medicine cabinet containing 6,136 pills that had been individually hand-painted. Jeff Koons and Lucian Freud have since unseated him by selling at auction for USD 21m and 30m respectively at Christie’s.
Damien Hirst also soars in private sales as well as in auctions. On August 30 2007, the White Cube reportedly sold “For the Love of God”, a platinum skull covered with 8,601 diamonds, for GBP50m. A work sold during an artist’s lifetime had never before gone for such a price.

Hirst, the market star, winner of the 1995 Turner Prize, is hardly a novice at high-profile sales. In October 2004, he had already had an historic sale with the Restaurant Pharmacy, which was at the time the biggest collection of his works. All the elements of the Notting Hill restaurant –walls, paintings and even tableware- had been made by Damien Hirst! Organised by Sotheby’s during the Frieze Art Fair, the sale was an unprecedented success. More than 500 collectors attended and all the items were snapped up for a total of GBP11.1m. The mood was set from the first object sold. Lot N° 1, two martini glasses estimated at GBP50-70, shot up to GBP4,800 in no time at all. There was just as much euphoria for larger lots, particularly certain “butterfly” paintings, some of which soared to GBP 364,000 each, a record at that time for this sort of work. The new pieces in the series that will be offered for sale on September 15 will certainly beat these prices. The Rose Window, Durham Cathedral (2008) which is 2.7 metres wide, has a low estimate of GBP 700,000. Once again this year on Valentines Day, Hirst teamed up with the singer Bono from U2 and the Gagosian Gallery to organise the (RED) charity auction at Sotheby’s to help fund drugs for people suffering from Aids in Africa. The showstopper was Where There´s a Will, There´s a Way, a 3-metre medicine cabinet full of pills, a reference to the HIV antiviral treatment, which went for USD 6.5m.

Hirst’s headline presence on the market has boosted his price levels which have risen by 270% in only a year. Beyond items that go for millions, there is also a parallel, more affordable market to meet demand from fans. In 2007, two thirds of his works went for less than EUR 10,000. But at these prices, the collector has to rein in his ambitions: these are essentially lithographs which are in plentiful supply.