YBA artist Damien Hirst has donated a vitrine with a gilded woolly mammoth skeleton that has been gilded in 24 karat gold to be auctioned off at the annual amfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala this week.
The auction takes place at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the South of France. The amfAR gala is one of the social highlights of the Cannes Film Festival and attracts support from A-lister stars such as Adrien Brody and Sharon Stone.
The work, valued at £2.5m, is titled “Gone but not Forgotten,” it measures three-meters high and contains mammal bones. Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde and bisected cow in his “Natural History” series were favourites at the Hirst retrospective held at Tate Modern two years ago.
This one off piece is expected to raise millions of dollars for the charity’s work in the fight against AIDS. In the past the auction lots have included a trip to space with Leonardo DiCaprio and a kiss from George Clooney.