The 47-year-old artist, shot on a winter afternoon in his office in central London. When he sits down to talk about his work—as he did for Blake Gopnik's profile of him in Newsweek—his reputation as a bad-boy seems undeserved, or like a pose he assumes when he wants to. He can also be demure and thoughtful about what he's been up to for the last 20 years. In that time he's moved from making single impressive objects, in his early days of shark-stuffing and dot-painting, to turning his entire public presence and sales success into a work of art. Gopnik argues that, over the last five years, Hirst has established himself as Andy Warhol's greatest heir. Click through this gallery to see a selection of Hirst's works paired with some of his own reflections on art.
“You’ve got to become a celebrity before you can undermine it, and take it apart, and show people that there’s no difference between celebrities and real life.”