Why Is World Famous Artist Damien Hirst Burning His Expensive Paintings?

World renowned British artist Damien Hirst recently showed off one of his famous “spot” paintings at a London art gallery and after displaying it to onlookers, he tossed it into a fire.

Why would this famous artist do such a thing?

Well, leave it up to Hirst to flip the art world upside down as he told the crowd, “I'm not burning my art, I'm transforming it.”

He is transforming it into an NFT, aka non-fungible token, so that a digital copy of the artwork will live forever.

“I think this has to be part of the process to create truly digital artworks is to destroy the physical artwork,” he said. “The two can't exist at the same time.”

Hirst gave collectors of his art a choice — keep the NFT or take home a physical copy.

"NFTs are too new for me, whereas having something I can hold, I prefer that,” one collector said.

About half of the buyers chose the NFT, sending his painting up in smoke.

“It's such a unique idea to bring into the art world,” said Kyle Johns, a UK-based digital art collector. “It's not destroying. It was cementing the fact that it's only gonna be an NFT.”

Transforming the art is not easy for the artist.

“The better the title, the harder it is to burn it,” he said.

This bizarre experiment was all meant to test the value of physical art versus digital.

“Which is worth more ? I still don't know. And which is better? I still don't know,” Hirst said.

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