“A piece of art by Damien Hirst has set the new record for a single item at auction. The piece entitled ‘Oh Shit’ fetched £2.3bn after frantic bidding by an anonymous investor. The work, which features a Merrill Lynch employee suspended in a tank of formaldehyde secured the highest price yet paid for a single piece of banking history…
Daily Telegraph art critic Mark Walker-Brice is one of the sceptical voices; ‘I mean we’ve seen this all before, haven’t we? I mean, this is just Northern Rock Bank Clerk, given a transatlantic sheen and passed off as the next big thing.’
Meanwhile, Hirst’s agent said he was delighted at the amount raised by the sale of his latest work. ‘Although we’re a bit worried about where he should deposit the cheque’.”
From NewsBiscuit, via new-blog-of-the-day Edward Winkleman.
2 Comments
October 21, 2008 at 7:20 am
Can we raise the £2.3 million to pay Hirst to do Gordon Brown cut in half with a chainsaw? I’m in for a fiver Ms B
October 21, 2008 at 11:40 am
This is distasteful and elitist art. How can Hirst (a multimillionaire) satirise the collapse of global banks and the impending recession with anything but shameless laughter, safe in the notion that his millions will keep him safe? The art market is the stockmarket writ small, and Hirst is the greediest broker there is.