Sorry The Lifestyle You Ordered Is Currently Out of Stock (Defaced Hirst), 2013-2014
Spray paint, emulsion and household gloss on canvas
99.1 x 114.3 cm (39×45 inches)
Unique
Signed by both artists on the reverse and variously inscribed
Sotheby’s New-York: 28 October 2020
USD 2,319,000
Sorry The Lifestyle You Ordered is Currently Out of Stock is a Damien Hirst Pharmaceutical (spot) Painting which Banksy has defaced. It is the second time a Defaced Hirst appeared at auction, Keep It Spotless, featuring an iconic Banksy‘s stencil of a maid sold at auction in 2008 already for a record price.
Keep It Spotless, 2007
Household gloss and spray-paint on canvas
214×305 cm (84 1/4 x 120 1/8 inches)
Sotheby’s New-York, 14 February 2008
USD 1,870,000
This time, Banksy takes another angle using a statement he has been widely sharing all along his career, attaching it to a “lifestyle”, which is not only a criticism against consumerism, but also against the way art collectors might be purchasing artworks, not for their artistic qualities, but rather for what they mean in terms of lifestyle…
It is obviously highly cynical as it is well-known that Damien Hirst and Banksy have respect for each other, and seem to be in very amicable terms, as they have been collaborating for a long time. Napalm was part of an exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery in London, in November 2006 from the Damien Hirst‘s Art Collection.
In the darkest hour, there may be light: Works from Damien Hirst’s Murderme collection Serpentine Gallery London, November 2006
The spot paintings are very well adequated with Banksy’s statement about lifestyle, as they are among Damien Hirst’s most recognizable and popular works. Damien Hirst is one of the most successful and controversial living British artists, and the spot painting series have been selling at very high prices… Hirst created his very first spot painting while he was still a student in 1986 at London’s Goldsmiths College. Today, there are about 1000 spot paintings in the world of different sizes, shapes, and colors. However, there has been some controversy about them as the vast majority of them have not been painted Hirst himself, but rather by his studio assistants.
Spot paintings are monochromatic canvases featuring orderly rows of perfectly rounded, glossy spots painted in a range of different bright colors, and with different sizes.
On January 2012, Damien Hirst‘s spot painting show was opened on all of Gagosian Gallery’s eleven locations in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva and Hong Kong. More than 150 private individuals or public institutions from twenty countries provided their paintings to create this single exhibition in different countries.
More than 300 paintings were shown, from the first spot, created by Hirst in 1986, to the smallest spot painting comprising half a spot and measuring 1 x 1/2 inch (1996); to a monumental work comprising only four spots, each 60 inches in diameter; and up to the most recent spot painting completed in 2011 containing 25,781 spots that are each 1 millimeter in diameter, with no single color ever repeated.
The exhibition preceded the first major museum retrospective of Hirst’s work opening at Tate Modern in London in April 2012. Those visitors who manage to see all eleven galleries spread on three continents until February 10, 2012, received a signed spot print by Damien Hirst with a personal dedication. Participation conditions were relatively strict as the print might be worth up to 50.000US$ at that time.