How Damien Hirst learned to love money

Damien Hirst earned himself a remarkable £50m last week for the sale of his work, ‘For the Love of God’- also known as the 'bling skull'. But could the market be tiring of the marketing-savvy 'E' grade art student?

The sale of For the Love of God a diamond-encrusted skull (see picture below) for £50m last week crowns a remarkable summer for Damien Hirst, says the Evening Standard. The king of Britart had earlier raised £130m from a sell-out London exhibition and the "bling skull" fetched the most ever paid for a living artist's work. But, as is often the case with Hirst, the sale was not quite as it seemed: he is part of the investment consortium that bought the skull and it is still, effectively, up for sale.

"The only function left of contemporary art is that of investment capital," says the critic Robert Hughes. Hirst, 42, has certainly come a long way since he hit headlines by putting a shark in a tank and making sculptures from medical supplies. Now he splits his time between London and a Devon farmhouse, shared with Californian wife Maia and three young sons. His empire's engine-room is his "factory": three workshops with more than 100 staff, on around £9 an hour, to realise his creative vision. He is unashamed by his lack of physical input usually no more than adding his signature. "As progenitor of the idea, I am the artist," he says. Artists from Rubens to Andy Warhol have used a similar system, says The Observer: Hirst's contemporary hero, Jeff Koons, runs a "colour-by-numbers" system for assistants, who clock on and off with "old-fashioned punchcards". But Hirst, who achieved an E' in his art A-level, has taken production and marketing to new levels. An ex-staff member recalls churning out Spot paintings using "random" colours the key being speed of output. Theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn was non-plussed to discover that a Spin painting he'd paid £27,000 for had been knocked out by two children.

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