Damien Hirst: Divide and Conquer

via The Art Newspaper:

Damien Hirst is rewriting the rules of the market
Roger Bevan | 10.7.08 | Issue 193

The final frontier protecting contemporary art galleries from the relentless encroachment of the auction houses has been emphatically breached with the announcement that Damien Hirst is creating an exhibition of new works for display and sale at the London headquarters of Sotheby's.[...]

[...] Hirst has crossed the market's Rubicon with a gambit which opens a new front for an admittedly very special situation: an artist with brand name recognition and a factory enterprise capable of producing a completely new series of seasonal variations to order. At a stroke, the judicious management of an artist's career by an agent who identifies which favoured collectors will be permitted to acquire material in conditions of secrecy gives way to the triumph of the highest bidder on the public stage. Now that Damien has demolished the moral barrier of using auctions for distribution and profit, other artists will follow suit.

The artist's regular dealerships, Gagosian Gallery and White Cube, will not like the development one little bit, but are obliged to support, or underwrite, it for the sake of their clients who have invested in Hirst's career and for the continuity of their own relationships with the income stream which he provides. They will be bidding against each other for Damien's attention as much as other prospective collectors will be bidding for themselves. Damien's divide and conquer policy may prove to be one of his cleverest and most entertaining strategies to date.