Damien Hirst has said he is not burning his art but "transforming it", as he began setting fire to thousands of his creations as part of a new exhibition.The British artist, 57, has begun the next stage of his The Currency exhibition in south London, which will see him destroy a physical collection of his classic polka dot-style artworks in contained fires.The project first began in July 2021 with 10,000 original pieces accompanied by NFTs (non-fungible tokens) which are cryptographic assets sto

Damien Hirst has said he is not burning his art but "transforming it", as he began setting fire to thousands of his creations as part of a new exhibition.The British artist, 57, has begun the next stage of his The Currency exhibition in south London, which will see him destroy a physical collection of his classic polka dot-style artworks in contained fires.The project first began in July 2021 with 10,000 original pieces accompanied by NFTs (non-fungible tokens) which are cryptographic assets stored digitally with a unique identification code that cannot be copied but can be sold. Collectors were given the option of keeping either the digital or the physical artwork.More than half of the collectors, 5,149, decided to keep the physical artwork while 4,851 opted for the NFT.