Buy a Shark, Be an Artist

Noted British art collector Charles Saatchi, who bought artist's Damien Hirst's fourteen-foot tiger shark floating in a tank of formaldehyde for $95,000 fourteen years ago, has been offered $12 million for the work. The deal is likely to be clinched "in the next few weeks," said a spokesman for Saatchi yesterday.

With the sale, Saatchi, who is the UK's biggest collector of contemporary art, will relinquish the most iconic work by a British artist in the late 20th century and the single most valuable asset in his collection. The destination of the shark is not known, but the spokesman confirmed that the offer had come from a client of the American art dealer Larry Gagosian, who is Hirst's agent in New York.

Mr Saatchi commissioned the work, called The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, in 1991. Hirst used a shark bought in Australia for around $9,000. When it was first shown, at the Saatchi Gallery in St. John's Wood in 1992, Hirst immediately became a media sensation. If you would like to see it, go to:

http://dh.ryoshuu.com/art/1991physic.html

I can't say this is one of my favorites.