Morning:
13°c
Time out for Hirst before sale
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent04.09.08
Damien Hirst features on this week's cover of American magazine Time - a rare accolade for an artist.
But the influential title's verdict on Hirst, 43, is not always admiring.
Reporter Richard Lacayo says in the article, due out tomorrow, that when Hirst is good, he is genuinely good. But he criticises his "production-line" spot and butterfly pictures as "profitable but for the most part aesthetically negligible".
The artist is to sell more than 220 lots at Sotheby's, London, this month for an estimated £65 million - prompting speculation as to whether there is a glut of Hirst available.
The magazine concludes: "In all likelihood, the huge Sotheby's sale will be another milestone in his financial victory march. But what's more interesting is that it may also be a terminus, a house cleaning by a man overtaken by his own success."
