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Always the sensationalist, UK artist Damien Hirst, the most well known exponent of the "Young British Art" movement championed by gallerist and ad exec Charles Saatchi has already amassed an international reputation and a fortune rumored to be hovering around 100 million GBP.

Hirst is a celebrity only to serious followers of contemporary art in the US. His most famous exhibition here was his inclusion in the controversial Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which famously drew the ire of Mayor Giuliani because of Chris Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary adorned with elephant dung. Overseas, however, Hirst is a megastar and a big business. When Pharmacy, a London bar he designed, closed down a couple years ago, he auctioned off every single glass, stool, plate and cocktail stirrer as limited edition art pieces, earning 11 million GBP and extensive press coverage. And that spectacle is nothing next to his "Natural History" series, which involved displaying embalmed animals in various stages of dissassembly in large glass boxes filled with formaldehyde. A preserved Tiger Shark, currently in the permanent collection of the MoMA sold for $12 million in 2004.

But nothing compares to his latest stunt, not the pickled sharks, the sliced apart sheep, the outrageous sums of money. All of that is dwarfed by the announcement that Hirst is currently working on the single most expensive piece of art ever made. For a June 2007 show at White Cube, he's making a replica human skull in platinum, which will be completely covered in roughly 10 million GBP worth of diamonds, all of which he is purchasing with his own fortune.. In terms of materials alone, "For The Love Of God" is significantly more expensive than the most costly crown ever auctioned in England. Art critics expect it to sell for upwards of 50 million GBP.

Hirst has caught a lot of flack over the years for being a hack, an opportunist, and a press-hungry egomaniac. His work has split opinion both in the art establishment and among the general public. Some feel he is one of the most important living artists today, and no one can dispute that he is among the most expensive living artists, which may ensure his place in contemporary art's canon despite the lack of consensus surrounding his work. One thing is absolutely certain: "For The Love Of God" will surely add fuel to the long-burning feuds and disputes over Hirst's place in the art world and the effects his sensationalist tendencies have had on it.