Wave-Making Artist Making Some More
A pickled shark, a gilded calf and other works by Brit art provocateur Damien Hirst are going up for auction in London.
In a break with art-world convention, Hirst is selling 223 new works at auction, at Sotheby's, rather than through a gallery. An auction is "a very democratic way to sell art," he said.
It could, says CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar, generate the biggest payday ever for a living artist, for what she calls "the bad boy of British art" who, as she puts it, is "no stranger to celebrity or controversy."
It is, says MacVicar, "either a reckless gamble or an audacious challenge to the business of selling art" that could generate "an astonishing" $120 million.
"Although there is risk involved, I embrace the challenge of selling my work in this way," Hirst said. "I never want to stop working with my galleries. This is different. The world's changing. Ultimately, I need to see where this road leads."
"It's got a lot of people shocked," he told MacVicar, "but, I quite like that. In a way, shocking people is enough sometimes to make you just do it for that reason."
"Your critics say it also puts a lot more money in your pocket," MacVicar pointed out.
"Yeah, well, we're gonna see what happens next week," Hirst responded. "I mean, everybody's talking about all the money I've made, but we haven't made it yet. Anything could happen on the day."
Sarah Thornton, author of "Seven Days in the Art World," told CBS News, "A lot of dealers think it's a very unhappy precedent. They are not keen that any of their artists should get the idea of going straight to auction."
The lots include "The Golden Calf," an embalmed calf with hooves and horns of 18-karat gold. It is expected to fetch $17 million at the Sept. 15-16 sale. "The Incredible Journey," a zebra in formaldehyde, has an estimated sale price of $2.8 million to $4.3 million. The sale, on Monday, also will include Hirst's paintings of butterflies.
Critics say many of these new works.are mere revisions of older ideas: more paintings of spots, more butterfly wings -- more product than art, all with very big price tags.
"I cannot understand why anyone would want a duplicate of something that somebody already has," observes art critic Brian Sewell to . "But that's where the branding comes in. You will have a Rolls Royce, I will have a Rolls Royce, he will have a Rolls Royce. It's branding. And it's stopped being art."
Hirst says these will be the last of the spots and the butterflies. Even he says he's beginning to feel like he needs a change, telling MacVicar, "A lot of the works in this exhibition I think were made by a younger man, and I think I'm getting a bit older, and need to just work out what the next step is."
Four of the works are being sold to benefit charities, including youth group Kids Company and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Hirst, 43, is among the best known of the "Young British Artists" who came to prominence in the 1990s. His often disturbing works have included a diamond-encrusted skull, sharks and sheep preserved in formaldehyde, and maggots attacking a cow's head.
Contemporary art collectors such as Charles Saatchi helped make Hirst famous and his works expensive, and they are displayed in museums such as the London's Tate gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.