"For The Love of God"
For Hirst, famous pickler of sharks and bovine bisector, all his art is about death. This piece, which was cast from an 18th-century skull he bought in London, was influenced by Mexican skulls encrusted in turquoise. “I remember thinking it would be great to do a diamond one — but just prohibitively expensive,” he recalls. “Then I started to think — maybe that’s why it is a good thing to do. Death is such a heavy subject, it would be good to make something that laughed in the face of it.”
Damien Hirst's latest artwork is this life-size platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 fine diamonds. The sculpture, titled "For The Love of God," will likely sell for as much as $100 million, making it the priciest contemporary artwork ever made. The title of the piece comes from Hirst's mother who asked her son, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”
Hirst, who financed the piece himself, watched for months as the price of international diamonds rose while the Bond Street gem dealer Bentley & Skinner tried to corner the market for the artist’s benefit. Given the ongoing controversy over blood diamonds from Africa, “For the Love of God” now has the potential to be about death in a more literal way.
Damien Hirst's latest artwork is this life-size platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 fine diamonds. The sculpture, titled "For The Love of God," will likely sell for as much as $100 million, making it the priciest contemporary artwork ever made. The title of the piece comes from Hirst's mother who asked her son, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”
Hirst, who financed the piece himself, watched for months as the price of international diamonds rose while the Bond Street gem dealer Bentley & Skinner tried to corner the market for the artist’s benefit. Given the ongoing controversy over blood diamonds from Africa, “For the Love of God” now has the potential to be about death in a more literal way.
more photos by BUCK-tard
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4 Comments
"We cant take it with us."
LOL
Amy:-)
So true, Lynn, we can't take it with us.
Thanks for sharing, BUCK-tard!
online.wsj.com/article/SB...331903.html
"For the Love of God" -- a life-size cast of a human skull in platinum covered with 8,601 pave-set diamonds weighing 1,106.18 carats -- from the moment it went on exhibit at London art gallery White Cube in June. With an asking price of £50 million (about $100 million), it instantly became the most expensive artwork by a living artist.
Following the announcement by a spokesman of Mr. Hirst's gallery that "For the Love of God" had been sold for $100 million at the very end of August, a new question has been added: Did it really sell? The terms of the deal were unprecedented: It was bought by an unnamed investment firm, with Mr. Hirst retaining an undisclosed ownership stake in the artwork. Now, many commentators question the reality of the transaction. Whether the sale was real or fictive, we may never know. Indeed, the general suspicion that those with a vested interest in a particular artist are prepared to either drive up the auction price or invent a nonexistent transaction for the sake of creating the perception of success is as old as the art market.