On sale at Damien Hirst’s gift shop, a £36,800 plastic skull
THEY are made from plastic and covered in garish household paint.
But these skulls are on sale for an incredible £36,800 in the gift shop of Damien Hirst’s exhibition at the Tate Modern.
Named ‘Hallucinatory Head’, the 50 limited edition skulls have been painted with streaks of gloss paint in the style of his ‘spin’ paintings.
If your budget won’t stretch to a skull other items include a £10,500 set of plates, £700-a-roll wallpaper, a skateboard for £480 or a deckchair for £310.
There is also an umbrella for £1 5 and a silk scarf for £125. All the products carry his signature styles such as butterflies or polka dots.
The Hallucinatory Heads and the other souvenirs were produced by Other Criteria, a publishing company co-founded by Hirst, which works with him to produce limited edition items and souvenirs.
But it was not clear last night to what extent he had been involved in producing the Hallucinatory Heads, or whether they were simply souvenirs that referenced his skulls and spin paintings. The gift shop is the final chamber in the exhibition at the Tate Modern in Southwark, South London.
His shark suspended in formaldehyde, named The Physical Impossibility of Death In the Mind Of Someone Living, is on show. Visitors can also see a £50million human skull covered in 8,601 diamonds, and his work A Thousand Years, where they will be assaulted by the smell of a rotting cow’s head and see flies eat from the animal’s head and die on an Insectocutor.
The retrospective opened after art critic Julian Spalding wrote in the Mail on Sunday that owners of Hirst’s art should sell ‘before the penny drops’ and described contemporary art as ‘con art’.
Hirst, 46, who has an estimated fortune of more than £200million, defended the cost of the merchandise saying: ‘You get the Mona Lisa and then you get the postcards, the T-shirts, the mouse-pad, the earrings and the mugs.’
Asked whether the plastic skulls would hold their value, he said: ‘Maybe on ebay you might be all right for a bit.’