Damien Hirst knows how to roll with the times. Commenting on the failure of very large painting of skulls from 2007 that failed to sell at Phillips de Pury in New York, he said this to the Independent:

“It was bought from me less than a year ago at half the price. In a way it’s good. We are looking at more realistic prices. People who bought things are not going to sell them that day. That is what an artist wants, for people to hang the works on their wall. As an artist, you don’t stop making art because people are not buying it”.

No doubt most will find Hirst’s breezy about face maddening. Though, on the face of it, he hasn’t changed his tune all that much. He said that he was willing to live with the consequences of the September auction. And there’s no reason to doubt that even now:

“If I want to sell new work, I’ll price it lower. If people have got less money, you can either just shut your door and say, ‘Screw everybody’, or I can wait until everyone can afford my work or price it cheaper.”

(The idea that a consignor and an auction house wanted to piggy-back on that sale seems cavalier now–a sure sign of speculative over-reaching [see below for our own maddening self-contradiction.])

Art’s Too Expensive, Says Hirst (The Independent)