Damien Hirst

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Damien Hirst

Artist

Hate him or loathe him, Damien Hirst is an artistic and business provocateur. Who else could render a photo of Bill Gates standing in front of his own famous work (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living) and turn it into a painting that sells for more than half a million dollars? Bill With Shark is a shrewd bit of philosophical and capitalist commentary: the once-voracious, aging Gates catching his own reflection and contemplating the work's title. Of course, the deeper reveal came to the art world when Hirst sold this and other works at Sotheby's last September for nearly $200 million, cutting out the middleman and raising the real possibility of the death of the art dealer. -- by Mark Borden

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Browse Damien Hirst's page at the Gagosian Gallery.

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Wikipedia

Damien Steven Hirst (born 7 June 1965) is an English artist and the most prominent member of the group known as "Young British Artists" (or YBAs) and is the richest living artist to date. Hirst dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s and is internationally renowned. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended. -- Wikipedia (5/15/2009).