In 2005, Takashi Hashiyama — CEO of the Japanese electronics company Maspro Denkoh — needed to choose between Christie's and Sotheby's to auction his collection of Impressionist paintings. Both houses had made compelling presentations. He couldn't split the collection. He couldn't determine which auction house would serve him better. He told both houses to settle it with a single round of Rock Paper Scissors.
Christie's consulted their international director's eleven-year-old daughters for strategy. The daughters' reasoning: most people expect their opponent to open with Rock, so they throw Paper to counter it, which means Scissors is the counter to the anticipated Paper. Christie's threw Scissors. Sotheby's threw Paper. Christie's won the auction.
The collection included paintings by Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, and Sisley. Christie's earned approximately $2.2 million in commissions from a sale secured by pre-teen game theory. It is one of the highest documented financial returns on a single RPS throw.
Damien Hirst's spot paintings are relevant here not because he was at Christie's that day, but because his broader presence in the contemporary art market reflects how that market works: attention, reputation, and the moment of transaction are inseparable from what anything is worth. Hirst understood this more explicitly than most artists of his generation. His work was designed to be sold, to be discussed in terms of its price, to make the transaction visible as part of the content.
Rock Paper Scissors and high-stakes art auctions share the same underlying logic. The work is worth what someone will pay for it. The transaction decides. And if the transaction is decided by a hand game, the hand game is part of the work.