An undated handout provided to the media on Wednesday, sept. 24,

Three weeks after Damien Hirst's 111.5 million-pound ($206 million) auction at Sotheby's, the artist will open a shop next door to the auction house in London.

The retail arm of Other Criteria, Hirst's publishing and merchandising company, will start business at 36 New Bond Street on Oct. 6, said Robyn Katkhuda, projects director, in an e-mail.

Passersby will notice the black-painted facade of the shop to the left of Sotheby's where the ``Beautiful Inside My Head Forever'' auction was held.

``It's a `soft' opening with no fanfare,'' said Katkhuda. ``The shop will have a selection of pieces from our Web site.''

Among the items on http://www.othercriteria.com are a limited- edition 18-carat gold charm bracelet with casts of 23 different pills, priced at 25,000 pounds plus tax, and a pack of 12 postcards from the artist's 2007 ``Beyond Belief'' show for 15 pounds.

Earlier this month, Other Criteria said in a press release the opening would include ``a series of gold sculptures.''

``A gold edition will come out in the future but is not yet ready,'' said Katkhuda, who would not describe the subject matter of the sculpture.

A second branch of Other Criteria is scheduled to open in December at 14 Hinde Street, Marylebone, Katkhuda said.

Traditional Plan

Other artists are sticking to the galleries to sell their works. Buenos Aires-based painter Guillermo Kuitca's abstract compositions inspired by maps, plans and diagrams feature at the London showrooms of Anglo-Swiss dealer Hauser & Wirth.

Six large-scale paintings, including a canvas 12 1/2 feet (3.8 meters) wide, based on memories of early 20th-century Cubism and contemporary dance, will be priced at $450,000 each.

Smaller canvases will retail at $250,000 and drawings at $10,000.

``He's been working day and night on these pieces for the last year,'' said Iwan Wirth, the gallery's co-founder. ``It's his most complex show so far.''

Next year Kuitca, born in 1961, will be the subject of a touring retrospective at museums in the U.S.

Hercules Head

A stool made out of a polyurethane head of Hercules and a baroque chandelier that recycles 1,000 used party-poppers are among the quirky new creations by design artists on show at the Biscuit Building in London's East End.

London-based arts consultancy Arts Co commissioned eight established and emerging names to come up with designs that celebrate the properties of plastic. The show, ``From Now To Eternity,'' is on during the London Design Festival and closes at the end of Frieze on Oct. 19., Arts Co said in an e-mail.

``The design events will get professionals talking about these pieces, Frieze will attract the collectors,'' said Isabella Macpherson, the company's co-founder in a telephone interview. ``There are fewer outright design collectors than art collectors who buy design.''

Award-winning architecture firm FAT contributed ``Soft Hercules,'' a stool featuring a classical-style head made from the plastic foam used to make executive stress balls. Four of the edition of eight have been sold at 3,500 pounds each.

Stuart Haygarth's recycled plastic ``Millennium Chandelier'' is in an edition of 10, at 10,000 pounds each. Four have found buyers with another two reserved, the organizers said.

Other designers represented include Committee (who have just been taken on by the London design art specialists Established & Sons), Hiroko Shiratori, Rolf Sachs, Raw Edges and Tomoko Azumi. Prices range from 600 pounds to 12,800 pounds.

``We've encouraged them to create limited-edition one-offs, which is the way design art is heading,'' said Macpherson. Over the next nine months the show will tour Miami, New York and Basel to coincide with the contemporary art fairs, she said.

Banksy Raffle

London dealer Lazarides has come up with an ingenious way to market street art -- a raffle. On the evening of Oct. 16, the day Frieze Art Fair officially opens, the urban art specialist will hold an ``Extravaganza'' of music, games and burlesque, according to an e-mailed statement.

The Soho gallery plans to sell 250 tickets at 5,000 pounds each for the event, which includes a raffle of ``System Error,'' an original ``corrupted'' oil painting by Banksy valued at more than 300,000 pounds, as well as works by Miranda Donovan, Faile and Jonathan Yeo. The ticket admits two and gives the holder a 1- in-10 chance of winning an original work, the statement said.

``This night is all about putting as much energy and attitude into the London art scene as these artists put into their work,'' said Steve Lazarides, the gallery's founder and director.