:strip_icc()/i.s3.glbimg.com/v1/AUTH_5dfbcf92c1a84b20a5da5024d398ff2f/internal_photos/bs/2022/n/e/EAUfrwSXqXivfnXv87ZQ/gettyimages-1432534980-1-.jpg "UK’s richest artist Damien Hyster sets fire to thousands of works worth more than £10m | Culture")
Titled “The Currency”, the UK’s richest artist’s new exhibition is nothing more than a collection of 10,000 NFTs associated with 10,000 original pieces of art. Hirst’s idea was to give collectors the option to keep their NFT or exchange it for physical art. Paintings that aren’t changed by July 27 this year will have the same fate: fire.
More than half of collectors (5,149) chose to exchange their NFT for original, physical works of art, while 4,851 buyers decided to keep their non-fungible tokens, each valued at £2,000.
The process of burning more than 4,000 paintings began today at London’s Newport Street Gallery and will continue until the exhibition ends on October 30. The burning of the works is recorded via live streaming, which shows the artist setting his own works on fire one at a time.
On his Instagram, Hirst wrote, “Many people think that I burn art worth millions of dollars, but I don’t, I end up converting these physical works into NFT by burning the physical versions, digital value or physical art, it’s difficult. In the best of times the setting is not lost, they are transferred to NFT once they are burned. “.
Jane Austen is a writer and contributor covering culture, literature, lifestyle, and society. Her work focuses on thoughtful storytelling, social trends, and the issues shaping everyday life, delivering engaging and accessible content for readers across the United Kingdom.
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