In 2009, the authors of the scientific journal Business Strategy Review conducted the analysis of the strategies and tactics of the artist Damien Hirst. In the article with the loud title “The Shark is Dead: How to Create a New Market for Yourself”, the researchers noted that many commercial companies never succeed, being caught in the so-called “inattention blindness”. In psychology, this means the state when a person is so fixated on a particular action or problem that he does not pay attention to external events, opportunities and even dangers if they are not related to his current tasks. When the goal is to evaluate the company's business strategy and its aspirations in the market, it usually comes down to studying the competitors. Then the company is offered a development plan, according to which it is necessary to produce more diverse products at an attractive price. Companies are trying to understand the current consumer demand to give the buyer what he wants, faster and better than competitors in this area. This is a standard scheme, and this way, according to the authors of the article, leads to the very "blindness". You can avoid disorientation. To do this, it is enough to answer three questions: what kind of customers the company has not yet considered, what products and services in this area consumers receive outside this company, and how else businessmen can conduct their business.
The artist Damien Hirst did not accidentally become a central example of research. The Englishman managed to get out of the "blindness" of the art world in relation to a wide range of strategies for promoting and selling objects of art. Researchers believe that this artist has found the answers to all three questions identified. First of all, he invented and offered people a new format: his art shocked and surprised the public. For example, in some art objects Hirst used flies, butterflies and even animals – these were sensational artworks! The audience got a real scandal and became its accomplices. And the artists opened a new market: one where people donated a lot of money for artworks not from gold and stones, but from inedible meat, insects, carrion and other unusual materials that expanded the boundaries of art. "Biological" materials have become a unique feature of Hirst, making him a kind of innovator in the world of art. In addition, the artworks have worked better than any advertising. And although recognition does not characterize art objects in any way, it allows you to determine the author by 100%. And the artist's fame is also a part of market relations.
Hirst showed that representatives of the creative community can also act independently. In himself, he combined the duties of the artist and curator. Without the usual distribution of roles between different people, he demonstrated how art objects can be made, shown and, finally, sold. The article says that the Englishman as a whole predicted the influence of curators on the fate of artists in an area where almost everything depends on the ability to join a certain circle. But this statement is not entirely true. At least because before Hirst there were successful art curators. Regarding his personality, it is more appropriate to highlight the ability of this person to do the work of a public relations specialist, business consultant and dealer of his own work. It was these talents that became especially relevant in difficult economic times, when professional gallery owners and dealers stopped coping with their work.
The artist Damien Hirst began his journey, like many of his colleagues in this field, with experiments. However, this Englishman was incredibly receptive to his audience, to the demands of customers. He quickly found a solution to the wishes of his admirers. Perhaps it is worth explaining the success of Hirst. In other words, the artist understood better than anyone else who they are - new consumers of modern art. These are people who quickly made their capital working in the financial services industry. It cannot be said that such workers deeply study art, but they are ready to invest money in it, especially if the artworks are modern and correspond to their personal convictions and values. Buying a painting, sculpture or unusual art object is important for them, on the one hand, for status, and on the other, for entertainment. In addition, these people see this as an investment profit. Hirst quickly realized: if the cost of the artwork is high, then in the future it can bring even greater benefits to the owner. The English artist has developed an algorithm that kept prices on the art market at a fairly high level. Since the early 2000s, the public has invested heavily in the artworks of Damien Hirst. According to ArtTactic researchers, if in 2000 the artist’s income was 2-3 million dollars a year, then in 2007 these figures increased markedly: to 75-80 million.
It so happened that on the art market there is an unspoken rule: the artworks of contemporary artists cannot be in auction catalogs directly from the workshops. First, artworks are selected in the primary market of galleries, where often only "their" authors are promoted. Then comes the selection of auctions, whose experts put up for auction the artworks of artists who already have regular customers, and therefore some kind of commercial stability. An enterprising Hirst decided on an unprecedented step, which now hardly anyone would dare: he was so confident in his clients that he entered into an agreement with the auction directly, bypassing the gallery owners.
At the London auction Beautiful Inside My Head Forever immediately 223 of his artworks went under the hammer for $ 200 million. For trades, it was an incredible gain on the eve of the unprecedented collapse of the exchange, which occurred in the 2008th year. And by this time, the market of contemporary art for the 4th year was in a state of commercial fever. As for Hirst, he thus demonstrated a previously unknown form of artist independence from intermediaries of the market system. Hurst still at the dawn of his career in the late 1980s, abandoned the traditional schemes to promote art. Past sales not only entered the history of the auction market, but also itself became a kind of performance that clearly revealed the idea of the Englishman: the artist is the creator who creates not only artworks, but also his own commercial success.
Art historian KyivGallery
Sources:
Arutiunova Anna. Art market in the XXI century: The space of artistic experiment. M .: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics, 2015. - 232 p. - (Culture studies). - ISBN 978-5-7598-1287-6. - OCR.
http://damienhirst.com
Image: Photographed by Prudence Associates © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2012
Image: Photographed by Prudence Associates © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2017