Value in Outsourcing Labor and Creating a Brand in the Art Market: The Damien Hirst Business Plan

This paper examines two groups of Damien Hirst's artwork to determine which appreciates more in value over time. Do unique, Hirst-created works appreciate more because they are one-of-a-kind, or does Hirst's established brand support the prices of the pieces in the repeated series? I find that the laws of supply and demand hold in the market for Hirst's work. Scarcer, unique works exhibit higher rates of return than repeated series works. However, the fact that Hirst's repeated series works' prices still increase despite increases in supply suggests that there is value to producing enough similar work so that a style becomes recognized as iconic of an artist, in other words, a brand.