Damien Hirst, an internationally renowned British artist, has broken his previous auction record with the us $18.5million sale of his "The Golden Calf" on September 15, the first day of his major solo sale. The auction, "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever", was held at Sotheby's in London.
With death as the central theme in Hirst's works, the exhibit is a white bullock preserved in formaldehyde with its hooves and horns made of 18-carat gold and a gold disc over its head. Hirst became famous for a series in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep and a cow) are preserved--sometimes having been dissected--in formaldehyde. Another iconic work, a tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in vitrine, sold for us $17.3million.
Amongst other themes is "A Thousand Years" which shows the life cycle of flies, replete with maggots hatching inside a box, turning into flies, feeding on a bloody, dead cow's head. and either perishing or continuing with the life cycle. Hirst told the news agency Reuters that "people would rather put their money into butterflies rather than banks after the economic gloom". The controversial artist draws influence from his job at a morgue in his early years. Not everyone was enthralled. Reuters quotes critic Charles Thomson: "This plague won't last".
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