In 2020, MSCHF cut out 88 spots from a Damien Hirst print and sold them for US$480 dollars each. The remaining canvas – a piece of white paper with 88 holes, was auctioned online for slightly over US$260,000 dollars. The print’s original cost was around US$30,000 dollars now we have Damien Hirst Skulls.
Now a group called the Open Art Surgeon have basically copied the idea but instead of dots they have chosen Damien Hirst skulls (Yawn). They have bought a skull painting (for $29,000) and dissected it into 90 smaller versions at a fraction of the original price.
Available for online purchase, buyers can own from one to three skulls at once – ranging from US$326 to $927 dollars. The target is around US$8,000 dollars, which will be re-invested in other artworks which will be fractionalised and re-sold in the same way.
Currently, there is approximately US$2,500 dollars raised and will be available for bidding until 30 August.
So if no more mini skulls are sold they are looking at a $26,000+ loss
Like the British artist, the Open Art Surgeon want to keep challenging the norm.
“We are keen to see if we can merge the worlds of crowdfunding and art collecting with this project. It is not something that has been done before.”
Moving forward, the representative added that the plan is to launch a new “fractionalised art ownership” project in this way two or three times per year. For the next project, another original Hirst is already in the planning stages. (It obviously takes a lot of planning to buy a painting and cut it up into smaller pieces !!)
