Damien Hirst – Great Expectations

Great Expectations, the second NFT collection by Damien Hirst, will be launched as an airdrop to all holders of The Currency NFTs on 25 November 2021.

The Great Expectations NFT collection contains 10,000 unique artworks made by Damien Hirst and will be allocated free of charge to The Currency NFT holders.

Following on from the artwork that he created for Drake’s Certified Lover Boy album cover, at the centre of these artworks are grids of emoji-like pregnant women whose forms have been constructed from spots of various shapes, sizes, and colours taken directly from The Currency artworks themselves. The collection references some of the most iconic imagery from Hirst’s monumental career.

While the structure and basic forms are repeated across the series, each NFT is individualised by colour or unique attributes. The rarities are divided into seven categories, which include accessories, clothes, facial features, hair, headwear, occupation, and background. Naturally, some attributes or combinations of attributes are rarer than others.

The Currency, launched in July 2021, challenges the concept of value through money and art. An experiment in belief, every participant is presented with a choice between keeping the NFT and the physical artwork, for which they have approximately one year to decide. In doing so, the project also incorporates the actions and inactions of the buyers, holders and sellers, effectively establishing itself as a participatory artwork that generatively involves the psychology of its participants. The Currency dramatically enters this experiment through the injection of a surprise unique artwork, given only to people who have not burned their NFT in exchange for the physical work.

Great Expectations is on the Palm blockchain, which is a new token-powered ecosystem for NFTs connected to Ethereum. It is 99% more energy efficient than proof of work systems. It also has low gas costs and fast transaction finality. Owners of Great Expectations works will be able to bridge their NFTs onto other blockchains and use their NFT on Ethereum by using the two-way bridge between Palm and Ethereum mainnet.