A report in The Art Newspaper explains that:
Damien Hirst?s shark floating in a tank of formaldehyde, recently sold
for $12 million to US billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, is
disintegrating and will need extensive conservation work to prevent it
from further deterioration. This is the view of conservation scientists
and natural history specialists who say that the bigger a specimen, the
more difficult it is to preserve long-term in formaldehyde…
Investigator Judith Price raises a further small point: "They think it’s complicated trying to keep it? Iconic status, indeed! Just wait till they try to dispose of the mess."
(Thanks to Judith Price and Sally Shelton for bringing this to our attention.)