Specializing in the art of the deal

Damien Hirst (sitting in front of his ''The Incredible Journey'') sold 220 works of art earlier this week for $200.8 million. (Sang Tan/ Associated Press)

Why people should feel outraged when an artist makes a quick couple of hundred million, and not even blink when bankers or investors do it is hard to say. But the spectacle of Damien Hirst earning an almost-effortless fortune in the same week that saw banks collapsing was morbidly entertaining, if nothing else.

When it comes to making money from his art, Hirst is flagrant, manipulative, and greedy. But in this he is no different from other people interested in making money (including some artists). And it doesn't change the fact that he has produced some remarkably powerful pieces during a nearly two-decade career.

Hirst's factory-style studio churns out a massive quantity of work. The challenge is to find buyers for it. At the moment, as Cristina Ruiz of the Art Newspaper recently uncovered, the artist has more than $180 million worth of unsold work sitting in his London gallery. His decision to cut out his dealers and take his latest work straight to auction made perfect sense.

He could avoid adding to the glut of inventory sitting with his dealers, and at the same time attract new collectors - especially those from emerging markets like Russia and Asia. (An auction house like Sotheby's has a much vaster reach than a commercial dealer.)

The strategy worked. Over two days of auctions, Hirst sold 220 works of art for $200.8 million, exceeding Sotheby's high estimate of $177.6 million. Only three works failed to find buyers.

The novelty of the sale - it was the first time an artist has sold a substantial body of new work at auction like this - helped guarantee the kind of buzz that generates strong bidding.

The timing of the sale was pure genius. Yes, the financial markets were collapsing dramatically even as the auction unfolded. But when people sell stocks, they often fall for the idea that art is a safer, more durable investment.

Impressionist and modern art may be. But contemporary art is much more speculative. And the evidence suggests that, while a sinking economy usually causes a slight spike in the art market as wealthy investors put their money into luxuries like art, the art market eventually slides with the rest of the economy - usually after a delay of about six months.

So if Hirst was going to go public with a massive auction of recent work, now was the right time. He made sure of it, with a protracted publicity blitz in the lead-up to the sale.

Did the crazy spectacle of Monday and Tuesday represent a new low in the ongoing debasement of art?

Attaching monetary value to art is always irrational. In many people it breeds resentment. But then, as recent events suggest, irrationality pervades the entire economy.

Even as he profits from it, Hirst - like Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons before him - is obsessed with the relationship between money and art. It has become part of what his work is about. His diamond-encrusted skull called "For the Love of God," which has an intrinsic value of $15 million, is only the most obvious example. (It wasn't one of the pieces up for auction.)

For almost two decades, Hirst has been near the center of an extraordinary flourishing of art in Britain. He is not a great artist, but he is not all bad either. His best pieces combine images of visceral power or glamour - a shark, a bull, an orgy of diamonds - with palpable reminders of death or putrefaction.

"I've always adhered to the principle that the simplest ideas are the best," he has said. And indeed, he is part of a generation of artists that has sought refuge in the literal - the thing itself - rather than in abstractions and symbols.

His great hero is Francis Bacon, who was a master at conveying an awareness of death through paint. Hirst, in a move typical of his generation, tries to convey a similar awareness not through paint but through . . . dead things. Like Bacon, he has a theatrical side, and no doubt enjoyed the theater of the auction - a very public roll of the dice.

I once asked Lucian Freud, a friend of Bacon, what he thought of Hirst. "I think he's really capable," he replied, adding: "There's a sense with a lot of artists today that the public is potentially theirs, which is very interesting to me. 'How can we woo them and involve them with something new?' In an odd way it's the same as it was a long time ago - say, in Hogarth's time. 'What can we do to get them interested? Shock and surprise them. . .' "

The insight is valid: Hirst's approach to the public is not unprecedented. It's just that today there is a lot more money sloshing around.

While it is obvious by now that Hirst is an artist of great chutzpah but limited ideas, it's also true that he has come up with a few pieces that have branded themselves onto the public imagination, especially in Britain - works like the dead sharks suspended in formaldehyde, the butterfly paintings, and the diamond skull.

This alone has been enough to make plenty of collectors eager to have a piece of him. Hirst, with a huge team of assistants and financial managers at his disposal, has happily obliged.

Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmee@globe.com.