Hirst versus the world

And nu... there's an ongoing fight between once poor artist-who-got-famous-real-quick and is now a multimillionaire marketeer Damien Hirst and a 16-year old teenager named Cartrain that he had arrested in a feud that started because the the kid had created some collages, and some of them included an image of the by now famous jewel-encrusted skull that Hirst had made and then sold (for what has been reported as £50 million British pounds which is a fucking lot of US Samolians)), and then Cartrain walked away with some Hirstonian artsy pencils.

Breathe deeply...

Hirst, who is apparently super sensitive about the "issue" (pronounced in BBC British as "easy-uh") that (like the Disney copyright police), he threatened to sue Cartrain and then forced the kiddie to hand over the artwork and to pay £200 British pounds (the British refuse to use Euros because, as explained to me by a drunk Brit in the high seas, they think of "Europeans" as WOGs) to Hirst.

But then a lot of artists got pissed off at Hirst and started creating more artwork using the Hirstonian skull as the subject matter in protest.

And now the whole "issue" gets more more bizarre lately, as Cartrain, probably seeing an Warholian moment, drops by a Hirst exhibition and walks away with a box of pencils that were in one of Hirst's works and leaves a ransom note (is this the DC Collector?) demanding his own artwork be returned.

Has Hirst been "played"?

How much is a box of pencils worth? Fifty pence? £3.99 if the pencils have rubbers on the ends? Well, if they're part of a Damien Hirst art installation, the value is £500,000. That is what 17-year-old graffiti artist Cartrain discovered when he pilfered some pencils from Hirst's sculpture Pharmacy. And that wasn't all – he was arrested, released on bail, and is waiting to find out if he will be formally charged with causing damage to an iconic artwork worth £10m.

And so... the constables now have valued that artsy box of pencils at £500,000 and then arrested the kid.

As the artworld turns...