Page History

...

Hirst, a deft entrepreneur of his brand, was not perfect, however. Considering the huge success of his September 2008 auction, the decline in demand for his works may seem surprising. His market index was inconsistent throughout, and after the 2008 auction it plummeted below that of contemporary art. The number of his paintings bought in at auctions also increased from 2007 and all throughout 2008.
http://artmarketmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Screen-shot-2010-02-06-at-10.11.15-AM1.png

http://artmarketmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Screen-shot-2010-02-06-at-10.10.24-AM1.png 

What does this all mean? Perhaps this plunge suggests that he went too far, or rather, too fast. The market seems to have had enough of the spin and spot paintings. He couldn't just keep pumping them out forever. Obviously caused by a huge pile of unsold works in his studio, Hirst considerably reduced the size of his group of assistants and announced that he would stop making spin and spot paintings (Henry). However, what I see as his bigger failure than the overproduction problem is that, by reverting back to the traditional paint-on-canvas paintings and saying heedless things about his previous works, he discredited his own works. In my opinion, when an artist confesses that he gave up painting because had tried to imitate some painter but failed is giving up at being a serious artist. When he finally picked up painting again, he had already created a very distinctive image of himself as a different, rebellious artist that goes against the grain, and his attempt to re-establish his status in the art world as a painter was not something that people wanted. He said himself that his spot and spin paintings were a "mechanical way to avoid the actual guy in a room, myself, with a blank canvas," a statement that strips these early works of the little meaning they had in the first place and debases the unorthodox principles he seemed to believe in to merely a pathetic escape from what he couldn't achieve due to his incompetence. Hirst was not the only one who was skeptical about his paintings. Critics, calling his paintings in the 2009 exhibition No Love Lost, Blue Paintings "deadly dull and amateurish", "dreadful" and "not worth looking at," seemed to have really hated it, too (Nikkah).

Hirst's painting

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rOmV6dySOPU/SuDF77ly_dI/AAAAAAAACXc/Lo5UNgCgf8c/s400/HirstPainting.jpg

...

Henry, Julie. "Damien Hirst lays off workers." The Telegraph. 22 Nov. 2008. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/3500553/Hirst-lays-off-workers.html^{Image Removed}>.

Jentleson, Katherine. "Beautiful Inside My Head...Whatever." Art Market Monitor. 6 Feb. 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://artmarketmonitor.com/2010/02/06/beautiful-inside-my-head-whatever/^{Image Removed}>.

Lacayo, Richard. "Damien Hirst: Bad Boy Makes Good." Time Magazine. 15 Sept. 2008. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1838750-3,00.html^{Image Removed}>.

Nikkah, Roya. "Damien Hirst's 'dreadful' paintings draw record crowds." The Telegraph. 18 Oct. 2009. Web. 19 Jan. 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/6360352/Damien-Hirsts-dreadful-paintings-draw-record-crowds.html^{Image Removed}>.