Damien Hirst, the 59-year-old British artist and one of the world's wealthiest living artists, has revealed a plan to continue creating artworks after his death. In an interview with the London Times, Hirst described a system of 200 notebooks, each representing one year after his demise, which will contain instructions for artworks that collectors can buy the rights to produce. These rights will be tradable certificates, and the works will be signed by his descendants. The scheme allows for back-dating of works, including a sculpture of a pig in formaldehyde conceived in 1991 but never made, which could be fabricated 145 years after his death and dated to 1991. This follows criticism Hirst faced in 2024 for assigning 1990s dates to formaldehyde sculptures actually produced recently, which his company Science Ltd. defended as conceptual artworks dated by conception.
This announcement matters because it underscores Hirst's enduring fascination with themes of value, mortality, and the art market's appetite for novelty and speculation. The plan extends his track record of provocative, market-savvy projects, including his 2008 Sotheby's auction that bypassed his gallery, his NFT project "The Currency" (2021), and his generative "Beautiful Paintings" series (2023), which generated $20.9 million. Critics may view the posthumous paintings as a cynical money grab, especially given Hirst's past controversies over back-dating and his claim of £1.3 million in U.K. Covid job retention funds despite high turnover. Yet it also reflects a broader cultural trend among ultra-wealthy figures like Tom Cruise and Bryan Johnson who seek to extend their legacies beyond death, raising questions about artistic authorship, authenticity, and the commodification of creativity.