Damien Hirst – The Currency: Artist starts setting fire to thousands of his spot paintings

Published

3 years ago

October 11, 2022

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Damien Hirst has started burning millions of pounds worth of his art as part of a project testing the value of physical paintings versus digital works – and told Sky News: “Who’s to judge what’s right and wrong and what’s real and not?”

The British artist, who rose to fame in the 1990s – winning the Turner Prize with an installation of a bisected cow and calf in formaldehyde – is setting fire to works created for The Currency, a project launched in July 2021.

With the collection of 10,000 pieces featuring his famous spot prints, collectors were given a choice: take a physical Hirst original (quite a bargain at $2,000) or opt for an NFT digital version.

Given a year to decide, buyers had to make their minds up in July this year. The result? Some 5,149 physical pieces will remain intact, their virtual doppelgangers deleted – while 4,851 NFTs will live on in the digital sphere, their painting equivalents going up in smoke.

Hirst has now started the fire for the unchosen physical pieces, with burning set to continue at his Newport Street Gallery near Vauxhall, south London, over the next few weeks.

He told Sky News he doesn’t see his project as burning his art, rather transforming it – but admitted that with his background firmly in the physical art world, he did need to get to grips with the digital one.

“I’m kind of rooted in the physical world, so I find the digital world more challenging,” he said. “I think this has to be part of the process. To create truly digital artworks is to destroy the physical artwork.”

On the first day of the burning, the smell of torched paper lingers throughout the gallery. All 10,000 paintings are represented here, with the 5,149 works whose owners opted for the physical greyed out.

At the moment, the majority of the other 4,851 are still in place, ready to be burnt, while blank rectangles occupy the spaces of those torched so far. By the end of the month, these will represent almost half.

Why opt for a digital artwork rather than a physical painting to display on your wall?

Kyle Johns, 28, from Cwmbran in south Wales, said he originally thought it was an obvious choice – but as the year went on, he changed his mind.

“I came into it, I was always art. I was going to have art on the wall. But it changed. We were in the community and it was nice. We were all in an [online] group and it’s just been brilliant.

“Over the year, the NFT became appealing. It’s hard to explain. If I try and tell my mum I’ve got a picture of a picture that’s going to be burnt, it doesn’t make sense. But when you think of it as the future, it is an art form, it’s digital – and we all have a phone.

“I’m not taking my wall [out] with me, I’m taking my phone and my NFT collection.”

Hirst says he views The Currency as a work of art in which people participate by buying, holding, selling and exchanging the works. The community, the burning, is all part of the art, part of the experiment.

Many who chose NFTs and resold early on have done well. In September 2021, the buyer of number 2,604, titled Revocation, sold it for $172,239 (£154,313). This was the NFT version. According to Hirst’s book on the project, The Currency has so far generated $89m (£78.9m) in sales.

Mr Johns, whose physical piece will burn later in October, says he may look to sell at some point, but for now he is enjoying the experience.

His joining The Currency led to a charity fundraising event supported by the artist – and he now even has a tattoo of another of Hirst’s famous artworks, the formaldehyde shark.

“For now, it’s about the community,” he said. “I think [the NFTs] are trading at about $7,000 (£6,281) now. We’ll see what happens.”

Zaheer Raffeeq, 28, who lives in London, opted to keep a physical Hirst painting – deciding three days before the deadline.

 ”NFTs are too new for me, whereas having something I can hold – I prefer that,” he said. “I thought it was taking too much of a risk to take the NFT.

“I see why people picked the NFT, because it’s also cool to say that Damien Hirst burnt my piece of art… I think I made the right choice.”

Is he worried he might miss out on a lot of money should the value of the NFTs rise more than the physical pieces?

“I think I would have thought the same thing if I’d had the NFT,” he said.

Once the burning is complete, who knows what will happen to the value of either of the sets, physical or digital? NFTs certainly have their critics – but Hirst says it is not for anyone to judge what others appreciate as art.

“With NFTs, we’re making art for people who haven’t been born yet,” he said. “Who’s to judge what’s right and wrong and what’s real and not?

“The people who aren’t born yet are going to decide what’s going to be remembered and what’s not. We’re just here to try and record today for the people of the future.”

Entertainment

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show’s Theo, drowns in Costa Rica

Published

12 hours ago

July 21, 2025

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Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show's Theo, drowns in Costa Rica

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played The Cosby Show character Theo, has drowned in Costa Rica, according to authorities.

The country’s Judicial Investigation Department said the 54-year-old actor drowned on Sunday afternoon off a beach on the Caribbean coast.

It is understood he was swimming at Playa Grande de Cocles in Limon province when he was pulled underwater by a current.

“He was rescued by people on the beach,” according to the department’s early report, but emergency workers from Costa Rica’s Red Cross found him without any signs of life and he was taken to the morgue.

Warner was on holiday with his family at the time, according to US celebrity news site People.

The Cosby Show aired from 1984 to 1992 on NBC in the US and is regarded as a groundbreaking show for its portrayal of a successful black middle-class family. It was also shown on Channel 4 in the UK at around the same time.

Its star, Bill Cosby, played a doctor named Cliff Huxtable, with Warner in the role of Theo, his only son.

The NBC sitcom was the most popular show in America for much of its run between 1984 and 1992.

Warner played the role for eight seasons in all 197 episodes, winning an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986.

For many, the lasting image of the character, and of Warner, is of him wearing a badly-botched mock designer shirt sewn by his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet.

Warner ‘proud’ of show despite Cosby claims

The legacy of The Cosby Show has been tarnished after Cosby was jailed in 2018 following a conviction for sexual assault.

He was released in 2021 after his conviction was overturned.

Dozens of women had accused Cosby of sexual assault or rape before the trial.

Following his release from prison, Cosby was found liable for sexually assaulting a woman at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a teenager.

Warner told the Associated Press in 2015: “My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of colour on television and film… We’ve always had ‘The Cosby Show’ to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.”

In 2023, Warner told People in an interview: “I know I can speak for all the cast when I say The Cosby Show is something that we are all still very proud of.”

Read more entertainment news:
Danny Dyer on Mr Big Stuff
Scuffle breaks out on Royal Opera House on stage

Warner wins a Grammy

Following his career on The Cosby Show, Warner later appeared on the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, co-starring with comedian Eddie Griffin in the series on the UPN network from 1996 to 2000.

In the 2010s he starred opposite Tracee Ellis Ross as a family-blending couple for two seasons on the BET sitcom Read Between The Lines.

He also had a role as OJ Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings in American Crime Story and was a series regular on Fox’s The Resident.

Films he has appeared in include the 2008 rom-com Fool’s Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson.

A poet and a musician, Warner won a Grammy for best traditional R&B performance for the song Jesus Children with Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway. He was also nominated for best spoken word poetry album for Hiding In Plain View.

Warner was married with a daughter, but chose to not publicly disclose their names.

Entertainment

Danny Dyer on Mr Bigstuff, Oasis, and his surprising screensaver

Published

19 hours ago

July 21, 2025

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Danny Dyer on Mr Bigstuff, Oasis, and his surprising screensaver

From Human Traffic and The Business to his critically acclaimed performance in the raunchy TV adaptation of Rivals, via a stint as Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders, Danny Dyer has been on our screens for more than 30 years.

But it was his performance in the TV comedy Mr Bigstuff that earned him his first BAFTA win – and one of the ceremony’s biggest cheers from the audience – earlier this year.

Now, he returns to his prize-winning role for the second series of the Sky show, which tells the story of two estranged brothers – Glen (played by creator Ryan Sampson), an anxious carpet salesman living his ideal suburban life with fiancee Kirsty (Harriet Webb), and Lee (played by Dyer), an alpha male who struts back into his brother’s life carrying their father’s ashes.

Several EastEnders alumni feature, including Nitin Ganatra, Victoria Alcock and Linda Henry, who played Dyer’s on-screen mother, Shirley Carter.

Reflecting on some of Albert Square’s most famous characters and who would work well in Mr Bigstuff, Dyer says he would have loved to see the late June Brown, who played the chain-smoking hypochondriac Dot Cotton for 35 years, taking on a role.

“Absolute legend,” he says.

Sampson suggests the late Dame Barbara Windsor, who played the formidable Queen Vic landlady Peggy Mitchell, but has a clear pitch if season three gets the green light.

“It could still be a possible, it would be amazing,” he says. “You want your Pat Butcher, don’t you? You want Pam St Clement. Why hasn’t she played a mafia boss yet? She’d be amazing. She’d be incredible at it.”

Dyer reveals his screensaver

After his long career on screen, Dyer is now enjoying playing a variety of roles alongside the Cockney geezer types that became his bread and butter in the early noughties.

His nuanced performance as awkward entrepreneur Freddie Jones in Rivals brought him praise from fans and critics alike, and Mr Bigstuff his BAFTA.

But Dyer always had range. After small TV roles in shows including The Bill and A Touch Of Frost, he grew close to the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter in 2000 after auditioning and earning the role of a waiter in his play Celebration at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, north London.

“I’ve got Harold Pinter as a screensaver on my phone,” he says. “I always feel that he’s sort of looking down on me or close to me, so I like to just feel that he’s around me.”

Dyer continued the role in Celebration both in the West End and on Broadway, with Pinter becoming his mentor in the process.

In 2020, he presented a Sky Arts documentary, Danny Dyer On Pinter, which explored the life, career and impact of the playwright and screenwriter, who died in 2008.

He also has plans to develop a stage tribute to his friend, currently titled When Harry Met Danny.

Reflecting on his entry into the industry, he says theatre was quite inaccessible at the time, but Pinter opened it up to him.

“I think it’s even worse now, which I feel is a sad state of affairs,” he says. “I don’t know why that is. Everything’s become quite elite. All the elite f****** looking after themselves, so that needs to change.”

‘Love in the air’ at Oasis gig

But Pinter isn’t his only big influence – Dyer was one of the thousands of fans to see Oasis make their return to the stage in Cardiff earlier this month.

“It was really emotional seeing them come out,” he says. “There was a lot of love in the air, a lot of good energy.

“You know, there’s a lot of f****** shit going on. I think people, of my age as well, just want to jump around and sing them songs at the top of their lungs. So I’m still recovering, I’m not going to lie.”

Mr Bigstuff returns for season two on Thursday, on Sky Max and NOW

Entertainment

Scuffle breaks out on stage of Royal Opera House after performer unfurls Palestinian flag

Published

19 hours ago

July 21, 2025

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Scuffle breaks out on stage of Royal Opera House after performer unfurls Palestinian flag

A brief scuffle broke out at London’s Royal Opera House after a performer unfurled a Palestinian flag during a show.

The incident took place during a performance of Il Trovatore on Saturday.

During the final night of the 11-night run of the show, a performer held up the flag on stage.

In video footage, shared online, someone backstage could be seen attempting to take it off the performer. The performer grabs it back following a brief scuffle.

A spokesperson for the Royal Ballet and Opera said: “The display of the flag was an unauthorised action by the artist.

“It was not approved by the Royal Ballet and Opera and is a wholly inappropriate act.”

The reaction to the flag was mixed, with some people heard applauding and cheering, while another audience member was heard saying “oh my God”.

One poster on X, who claimed to have been a member of the audience, said: “Extraordinary scenes at the Royal Opera House tonight.

“During the curtain call for Il Trovatore one of the background artists came on stage waving a Palestine flag. Just stood there, no bowing or shouting. Someone off stage kept trying to take it off him. Incredible.”

Performers show support for Palestinians

A number of performers have shown support for Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

During Glastonbury Festival, numerous acts offered messages of support during their sets, including Kneecap, Bob Vylan, Wolf Alice, and Amyl And The Sniffers.

During her band’s set, Wolf Alice singer Ellie Rowsell told the crowd at the Other Stage: “Whilst we have the stage for just a little bit longer, we want to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine.

“No-one should ever be afraid to do that.”

Following their performances, both Kneecap and Bob Vylan faced investigation by Avon and Somerset Police.

Bob Vylan were widely criticised after leading on-stage chants of “death to the IDF” (Israel Defence Forces).

The performance was live-streamed by the BBC, sparking a backlash against the broadcaster – which later issued an apology.

The investigation into Kneecap was later dropped, with the police saying there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any offence”.