British artist Damien Hirst and printmaker HENI Leviathan have announced the release of a print run of eight Hirst paintings, which will be available for purchase with the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Damien Hirst has always put the intertwined relationship between art and finance at the centre of his practice.
Hirst eight new prints from his The Virtues series are now available for purchase with the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ether. This series, Titled The Virtues, depicts cherry blossoms in bloom. Hirst has been chronicling his process in creating them on his Instagram page, and he says that the paintings “are about beauty and life and death” themes and forces he frequently explores in his work. The cherry blossom refers to Impressionism, Pointillism and Action Painting and are about the spontaneous joy of spring.
“Cherry Blossoms are about beauty and life and death. They’re extreme, there’s something hopeful yet hopeless about them. They’re art but taken from nature. They’re about desire and how we process love and why we need it, but also these prints are about the momentary, the insane transience of beauty, a tree in full crazy blossom against a clear blue sky,” Hirst said.
HENI Leviathan accepting cryptocurrency payments is also a sign of growing adoption from the institutional art world. The printmaker is most widely respected among fine artists and collectors and has featured runs from other artists of historical significance. “I’ve made eight beauty cherry blossom prints called The Virtues, with @heni. The eight prints are each titled after one of The Eight Virtues of Bushido: Justice, Courage, Mercy, Politeness, Honesty, Honour, Loyalty, Control,” Damien Hirst wrote in an Instagram post.
Collectors have to act fast, however. The set of prints are only available on Heni Leviathan, an online marketplace for contemporary art, for one week. Each print is $3,000, and the number of editions has been based on demand.