The Currency: The Complete Series

The Currency: The Complete Series is a two-volume hardback publication. Volume one is dedicated to the 5,149 original artworks and volume two to the NFTs, accompanied by a conversation between Hirst and former Bank of England executive Mark Carney. Complete with all 10,000 works and their titles, this is the definitive catalogue of Damien Hirst’s The Currency project.

The Currency project is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that correspond with 10,000 unique spot paintings by Damien Hirst. When the project launched in July 2021, collectors were given the choice to either keep the NFT or exchange it for the physical artwork.

The physical artworks were created by hand in 2016 using enamel paint on handmade A4 paper. Each artwork is numbered, titled, stamped, and signed by the artist on the back. Additional authenticity features on the artwork paper include a watermark, a microdot and a hologram containing a portrait of the artist. On each artwork, no colour is repeated twice, and each title was generated by a computer that used machine-learning to generate titles from Hirst’s favourite song lyrics.

When the exchange period closed in July 2022, over half the collectors, 5,149, decided to keep the physical artwork and 4,851 the NFT. Unclaimed artworks, physical or digital, were then destroyed: the physical artworks were burned in furnaces during The Currency exhibition at Newport Street Gallery, London.