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The Golden Calf By Damien Hirst Headlines Groundbreaking Auction Of Work By Artist
THE GOLDEN CALF BY DAMIEN HIRST HEADLINES GROUNDBREAKING AUCTION OF WORK BY ARTIST
– BEAUTIFUL INSIDE MY HEAD FOREVER –
Thursday, June 19, 2008 — Sotheby’s London will present Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, a major auction of new works by Damien Hirst, on 15 and 16 September 2008.
Beautiful Inside My Head Forever is an historic sale which incorporates an extraordinary range of works by Mr. Hirst, all created over the past two years. From monumental formaldehyde sculptures to new paintings which expand on the artist’s classic themes such as butterflies, cancer cells and pills; from exquisite new cabinets to insightful preparatory drawings, the works in the sale document the full breadth of the artist’s creative output.
Coinciding with the 20-year anniversary of the celebrated Freeze exhibition curated by Mr. Hirst in London, which launched the careers of Hirst and his contemporaries, the auction affirms Hirst’s position as a boundary breaker; one who has never been just an artist working in the traditional vein.
Beautiful Inside My Head Forever follows the now legendary Pharmacy auction, organised by Sotheby’s in 2004, which raised £11.1 million. The auction attracted an unprecedented number of bidders, many of whom spent hours queuing before the sale, eager to bid for a work by the UK’s leading 21st-century artist.
Damien Hirst said: “After the success of the Pharmacy auction, I always felt I would like to do another auction. It’s a very democratic way to sell art and it feels like a natural evolution for contemporary art. Although there is risk involved, I embrace the challenge of selling my work in this way. I never want to stop working with my galleries. This is different. The world’s changing, ultimately I need to see where this road leads.”
The centrepiece of the auction, The Golden Calf, is a monumental new sculpture: a bull in formaldehyde, whose head is crowned by a solid gold disc and whose hooves and horns are cast in 18- carat solid gold. Encased in a gold-plated stainless steel and glass box, it measures 215.4 by 320 by 137.2 cm. This exceptional work, which unites the artist’s interests in science, religion, beauty and death, is estimated to realise £8-12 million.
Cheyenne Westphal, Chairman Contemporary Art Sotheby’s Europe and Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s Senior International Specialist, said: “Damien Hirst is the leading artist of his generation. The extraordinary body of new work to be showcased at Sotheby’s is among his best yet: ambitious, exquisite and incredibly powerful.”
Jay Jopling said: “Damien has always been a mould breaker and I’ve stood alongside him in all his ventures including his strategic forays into the auction world, which have certainly helped to broaden his market. 8,601 flawless diamonds notwithstanding, ours has never been a traditional marriage and I look forward to many more adventures to come.”
Gagosian Gallery said: “As Damien’s long-term gallery, we’ve come to expect the unexpected. He can certainly count on us to be in the room with paddle in hand.”
Further details about the content of the sale will follow.
Preview Dates:
5 - 15 September 2008
Auction:
15 and 16 September 2008
Auction Record
Damien Hirst’s medicine cabinet, Lullaby Spring 2002 sold at Sotheby’s in London for £9.65m in June 2007, at the time, a record for any work by a living artist.
Damien Hirst Biography
Damien Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol, UK. He grew up in Leeds before graduating with a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London where he was the dominant figure of a generation of British artists. In 1988, he curated the Goldsmiths exhibition, Freeze, in a warehouse in Surrey Docks, East London. He lives and works in London, Devon and Mexico. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Into Me/Out of Me, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2006), In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Tate Britain, the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and Century City, Tate Modern (2001). Solo exhibitions include Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2005), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2005), Archaeological Museum, Naples (2004) and In the darkest hour there may be light (2006) works from Damien Hirst’s Murderme collection, curated by the artist, Serpentine Gallery, London. He received the DAAD fellowship in Berlin in 1994 and the Turner Prize in 1995. In August 2007, his diamond encrusted skull, For the Love of God, sold for £50 million.
The Pharmacy Sale:
All 168 lots offered in the Pharmacy auction at Sotheby’s London in October 2004 sold, raising a total of £11,132,180 ($20,063,528) - a figure far in excess of the pre-sale estimate of £3.5-4.9 million. Damien Hirst’s international status attracted more than 500 people into the saleroom, many of whom spent the hour before the sale queuing on New Bond Street eager to bid for a piece of Pharmacy’s history. The sale featured the entire range of objects that Hirst designed for the Pharmacy restaurant, including butterfly and pill paintings, pharmacy wallpaper, large medicine cabinets, martini glasses and even ashtrays.
