Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirstis an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists, who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth7 June 1965
But I always liked the fact that you get these totally unacceptable images, but they're taken by a really expensive photographer, with great light, and in terms of the quality of the photograph it's a great photograph, but in terms of imagery it's unacceptable, and I like that contradiction.
What I really like is minimum effort for maximum effect.
I have titles floating around in my head; I have sculptures floating around in my head. It's like a collage.
I'm 43. I'm not ready to sit down in a chair with my name on it yet.
Immortality is really desirable, I guess. In terms of images, anyway.
I did a butterfly show in Berlin, and we had a guy who's an expert on butterflies; who bred them all and who looks after them all in the space.
I wanted a shark that's big enough to eat you, and in a large enough amount of liquid so that you could imagine you were in there with it.
You have to step over the boundaries sometimes just to find out where theyare.
It'd be nice to make lots of money but it's quite difficult, because every time I make lots of money I make a bigger piece that costs lots of money.
The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel.
A painting probably is the most shocking increase in value, from what it costs to make to what you sell it for.
If the choice is between buying another building or a Pollock, I'd go for the Pollock every time.
When you've just done it, you're not sure. But when you've sat with it for a couple of hours and you don't want to do anything more to it, that's a great feeling. It can stand on its own two feet.
For me, art is always a kind of theater. When I started the spot paintings, I made them as an endless series. But I was never serious about it being an endless series. It was just an implied endless series. The theater means you just have to make it look good for that moment in the spotlight.