English artist Damien Hirst is under increased scrutiny this week following accusations that he backdated more than 1,000 artworks from his NFT project “The Currency,” The Guardian reported Wednesday.
Damian Hirst under fire for NFT project after Exposé
The controversial artist, perhaps best known for works depicting animals preserved in formaldehyde, allegedly misrepresented the actual dates of approximately 10% of the 10,000 physical paintings in “The Currency,” all of which were a corresponding NFT.
Launched in 2021 and selling for $2000, Hirst said all physical paintings part of the NFT project were handmade in 2016.
Sources who spoke to The Guardian said that, in fact, the hatched paintings were mass-produced by nearly a dozen artists in 2018 and 2019 in the UK on a “Henry Ford production line.”
More Damien Hirst artwork was created years later than claimed, investigation finds https://t.co/075Ly2JVU3 #nft #nftnews #nfts
– Kyked (@kykednft) May 23, 2024
“It was very, very boring,” a source told the Guardian. “There were a lot of sheets on these tables and they were quite low, so you had to bend over to set them up. After a while some people began to experience repetitive strain injuries.”
Multi-painting footage recorded from inside Hirst’s studio in 2019 and verified by the media confirms the allegations.
Hirst’s lawyers have not denied the claims, saying the 2016 notation represents the conceptual date of Hirst’s “The Currency” rather than the physical production date of each painting.
Physical copies of Damien Hirst’s “The Currency” NFTs go up in smoke
Buyers of “The Currency” were allowed to keep the physical painting or its digital twin, but not both. In 2022, Hirst burned the physical versions of those who selected the NFT to effectively digitally transfer the value of each painting.
“Many people think I’m burning millions of dollars on art, but that’s not the case,” Hirst told the BBC at the time. “I am completing the transformation of these physical artworks into NFTs by burning the physical versions.”
Backdating, the process of labeling a work of art with an inaccurate year indicating when it was created, is widely frowned upon in the art world.
This isn’t the first time Hirst has been accused of falsely dating a piece, with the Guardian publishing an exposé in March revealing that three of his formaldehyde sculptures from the 1990s were actually created in 2017.
If true, the allegations could damage Hirst’s already scrutinized reputation, cast doubt on the legitimacy of his works and potentially lower the value of his NFT project.
