My Global Hustle

There is butterfly wallpaper in the downstairs lavatory of the Georgian building that houses Damien Hirst’s London office. On the wall hangs a framed flyposter for the newspaper The Evening Standard that reads: HIRST’S £50M DIAMOND SKULL. Artwork in Hirst’s own office, up a flight of stairs, includes a photograph of Francis Bacon, a green Electric Chair by Andy Warhol, and a sculpture of Christ, likewise in an electric chair, by the fast-rising British artist Paul Fryer. The ensemble suggests two of the artist’s salient characteristics-his bumptiousness and his generosity of spirit-since, aside from Jeff Koons, I am aware of few other artists who display the work of their contemporaries and their juniors. But Hirst showed this godfather-ish streak early on when he put together “Freeze,” the July 1988 exhibition in a warehouse in London’s Docklands that showcased his fellow students at Goldsmiths College and played a significant part in creating the British art world as it is today.