Burn or Keep? Damien Hirst Torches His Own Art

In one of the strangest experiments of the NFT era, Damien Hirst created 10,000 near-identical dot paintings and sold each with a digital twin. Buyers had a year to choose: keep the physical work, or keep the NFT. They couldn't have both.

Those who chose the digital version condemned their painting to the flames. In late 2022, Hirst himself began publicly burning thousands of the artworks in a London gallery, feeding them into stoves before onlookers.

Provocative, absurd, or a sharp comment on what we truly value — 'The Currency' forced collectors to gamble on whether art's future is paint or pixels.

Image: “Stack of 360 banknotes of 50'000 kips (Laos)” — Basile Morin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.