Britain's most controversial artist has teamed up with one of music history's best rock bass players for a painted series of guitars that seem right out of the Hendrix collection.
Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has tapped Damien Hirst to lend his splash color design for deluxe spin bass guitars that come in a specially designed, hand spun case.
Hirst, left, and Flea
Each guitar, painted with glossy household paint, includes a package consisting of an Exquisite Corpse drawing by Hirst and Flea, a 6 x 6 framed monochrome butterfly gloss on canvas, a unique photograph of Hirst and Flea holding the guitar and 20 specially designed plectrums (aka picks).
The guitars are signed by Hirst and Flea on the back, with the edition number pinched on the base of the neck and the Hirst-Flea logo on the headstock.
The multi-colored deluxe spin bass guitars are priced at US$80,000 and are limited to 50 pieces. The color spin bass guitars (splashed in blue, green, and yellow) as well as the black and white spin bass guitars cost US$16,000 a piece; 125 models were produced for each type.
Profits from the sales will go towards the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a charity Flea co-founded in 2010, seeking to enrich the lives of children through free music lessons and instruments.
Monochrome butterfly on painted canvas, 6 x 6
Hirst is one of the most iconic, and highest-earning, artists in recent history; his career skyrocketed after presenting a series of dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. The Aussie-American musician Flea (real name: Michael Peter Balzary) is also a composer and co-founding member of his rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.
In September of 2011, Hirst designed a Fender Stratocaster guitar that sold at Christie's for US$146,730.
* The guitars are available for sale at www.othercriteria.com
