Damien Hirst, one of the most highly rated artists in the world, willingly provocative, approaches the fireplaces in silver overalls.
He burns, in front of dozens of people present and live on Instagram, one by one his paintings, all similar with multicolored dots on A4 sheets.
"Instinctively I feel it's not right to burn the artwork. But when I think about it, I know I have to burn the artwork because it's part of the process I'm in" , the artist said solemnly to reporters, throwing works into the flames.
Acronym for "Non-Fungible Token", the NFT is a "non-fungible token", that is to say non-substitutable and therefore unique.
Concretely, it is a theoretically unfalsifiable digital certificate of authenticity, registered in a "blockchain" (a chain of blocks), just like cryptocurrencies.
NFTs have been breaking into the art world for several years.
Buyers had one year, until July 27, to choose: either they opted for the paint or the NFT.
British artist Damien Hirst burns one of his works as part of his "Currency" project, on October 11, 2022 at the Newport Street Gallery in London Isabel INFANTES AFP
More than half (5,149) decided to keep painting, the others preferred NFT.
It was their works of art that were burned.
Nearly 5,000 will therefore go up in smoke.
A thousand paintings were to be burned on Tuesday.
The others will be on several dates in October.
© 2022 AFP