In 2012, the year of the Mayan apocalypse, an outbreak of spots is going to spread across the world. And Damien Hirst is to blame.

That's right, next January the Gagosian Gallery will mount simultaneous shows of the YBA's "spot" paintings in of its 11 outposts around the globe, displaying the complete collection of the works produced between 1986 and 2011. Only about half of the collection will be for sale, with the rest on loan.

It will mark the beginning of a gargantuan comeback attempt by the artist, whose Tate Modern retrospective opening in April — which will coincide with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London — will allow crowds to take in the full breadth of work by the former bad-boy artist. His output in recent years has been overtaken by his evidently growing obsession with the art market — a market he became synonymous with after his $200 million one-man Sotheby's sale in 2008.  

Hirst claims to have been batting around the idea of a major spot  retrospective of his spot paintings for a long time, and even had a show planned years ago in two venues in London — the Saatchi Gallery and the Tate Britain — but they never happened. When Hirst recently proposed the idea to Larry Gagosian, the megadealer recognized an opportunity. Gagosian rarely has a show span two of his galleries, let alone 11, but such is the star power of Hirst.

If the exhibition succeeds in gathering the full collection, the art world will finally be able to solve the mystery of how many spot paintings Hirst's factory has produced. While many guess the number is in the high hundreds, even 1,000, no one knows for sure.

While the transnational show is certainly an attention-getting concept, the lingering question is how it might affect the market for Hirst's work. Clearly, it's a risk to flood the market with an extraordinary supply of similar paintings. Then again, it has been well-known for years that Hirst mass-produces his spots, and that doesn't seem to deter collectors from paying over $1 million for them. Last February, "Arginine Decarboxylase," a Hirst spot painting from 1994, sold for over £880,000 ($1.4 million) at Christie's in London, 50 percent above its high estimate.