So here we are again, watching another celebrated artist squirm under the magnifying glass of plagiarism accusations. This time it's Damien Hirst – Britain's richest artist, worth a cool $384 million – allegedly pinching the fly-based concept that launched his career from a fellow Goldsmiths student who died tragically young and largely forgotten.
According to curator Dominic Johnson, Hirst's breakthrough piece A Thousand Years– you know, the one with flies munching on a cow's head that made Charles Saatchi reach for his chequebook – bears a suspicious resemblance to Hamad Butt's Fly-Piece, created a month earlier in June 1990, which consisted of live flies in a glass display case.
