Beautiful Inside Hirst's Head Forever
by Zoe Strimpel
Mon, 23 Jun 2008 at 5:42 PM
Sotheby's London is to hold a September sale devoted purely to new Damien Hirst paintings. "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever" comprises a wide range of works completed in the last two years, though the list of lots is still under wraps. We do, however, know that a fair few will draw on the old Hirstian themes of butterflies, disease, and medication; cancer cells and pills are among the collection. The crowning glory of the sale, according to Sotheby's, is "The Golden Calf," an enormous sculpture (215.4 by 320 by 137.2 centimeters), made from a bull in formaldehyde, whose head is crowned by a solid gold disc and whose hooves and horns are cast in 18-karat gold, estimated to sell for between £8 million ($15.7 million) and £12 million ($23.6 million).
A pure Hirst sale is certainly an exciting prospect (not the first at Sotheby's), but one can't help wondering if the house is perhaps nervous it might not do so well; these are early days to start with the press avalanche. Then there's also the niggling fact that at October's Contemporary art evening sale, Mr. Hirst did okay, but not spectacularly. At the time I wondered if perhaps his day had passed and the market had moved on. Now that we've got the likes of Jake and Dinos Chapman repainting original pieces of Hitler art, maybe the old formaldehyde jig is up. Mr. Hirst has certainly been dancing it for years.
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