Colossus Of Rogues

Damien Hirst’s massive show in Venice left the art world in awe and disbelief. The artist has his say.

- David Colman

“Money is a really good way to get people’s attention,” said Damien Hirst, sitting in a conference room of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, taking a break from planning the de- installation of his largest, and most controversial, show yet. “In the Western world, people like the old van Gogh thing—they don’t like artists making money. But money is a massively important thing in the world, so I want to take it on, too. I don’t think you can make art without considering it.”

One of the richest visual artists in history, Hirst, 52, revels in the magnetic effect money has, attracting or repulsing hearts and minds, as evidenced both by his 2007 diamond-paved skull and his 2008 retrospective-cum-auction at Sotheby’s, which took in $200 million. But “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable” made those earlier works seem like appetizers. Spread through two of Venice’s most palatial museums, its 189 pieces in bronze, marble, malachite, rock crystal, silver, and gold, brought to life the legend of an (entirely fictional) second-century collector, and his (entirely fictional) hoard of coral-covered sculptures and religious relics salvaged from an (entirely fictional) shipwreck in the Indian Ocean. Taking more than ten years and $65 million to create, “Treasures,” which closed on December 3, was almost certainly the most sprawling and expensive show of work that a single artist has ever produced.