Creativity Quote by Damien Hirst

The brag in Damien Hirst's "I always ignore money" isn't that he's above cash; it's that he can afford to pretend it isn't there. In a single line, he performs the cool indifference that the contemporary art world fetishizes: the artist as someone who deals in life-and-death symbols, not price tags. The problem, and the point, is that Hirst is one of the figures most responsible for collapsing that distinction. When your work is routinely discussed in the same breath as auctions, hedge funds, and record-breaking sales, "ignoring money" reads less like a vow than a strategy.

The specific intent is double-edged. On the surface, it's a defense against the most common accusation leveled at him: that he makes art engineered for the market, spectacle calibrated for collectors. Underneath, it's a bit of stagecraft: refusing to acknowledge money is a way of controlling the frame. If money is treated as irrelevant, then the conversation must shift back to ideas, mortality, provocation, ambition - the stuff that grants moral permission for obscene prices.

Context matters because Hirst's career has been a master class in the symbiosis of art and commerce. From the Young British Artists era to splashy productions and direct-to-auction gestures, he's helped normalize the artist as brand manager. "I always ignore money" becomes a wink at the audience that already knows the numbers. It's not an escape from capitalism; it's the language capitalism uses when it wants to sound like destiny.