Jeremyriad

Britain’s richest living artist, Damien Hirst, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist, Flea, have collaborated on a series of guitars to benefit The Silverlake Conservatory.  The pair used glossy household paint to “electrify” 300 bass guitars which are being offered through the Hirst-co-owned Other Criteria.

The Multi-Coloured Deluxe Spin Bass Guitars (above) are from an edition of 50 and come in a specially designed, hand spun case including a Surrealist shared Exquisite Corpse sketch by Hirst and Flea; a 6 x 6” framed monochrome butterfly gloss on canvas by Hirst; a unique photograph of Hirst and Flea holding the guitar and 20 specially designed plectrums. “Plectrums,” incidentally, are typically called “guitar picks” by people who don’t have the £50,000.00 GBP (about $78,000.00 USD) this package costs.

But dude, it’s for charity. They can’t just “Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away, Now,” now can they?

Flea established The Silverlake Conservatory of Music in 2011 with his childhood friend, Keith Barry. Based in Los Angeles, its primary focus is on the youth of the community, to enrich their lives through music, offering affordable or free music lessons and instruments. It also grants scholarships to children in need.

That’s really cool actually. If all of the guitars sell (and I did the right math), Hirst and Flea can help LA youth to the tune of $4,289,725 USD.

Here are those “plecturns” aka picks. I wouldn’t mind owning a handful of Flea-Hirst collabo-picks, but unfortunately, they’re not sold separately. There are, however, two other guitar packages (The Black and White and Colour Spin Bass Guitars) priced at £10,000.00 GBP. These two are from editions of 125 and come with spun-design cases. All guitars are signed by Flea and Damien Hirst on the back with the edition number punched on the base of the neck and the Hirst-Flea logo on the headstock.

Oh, you didn’t know that Flea was a fan of the visual arts? I ran into him at MOCA in LA during the Art in the Streets exhibition. (Someday I’ll do a proper post about it.) Shortly after I took this picture, the woman in the foreground at right smacked the camera out of my hand and 86′d me from the museum. Just kidding! I have no idea who she is.

Click through for more photos of the guitars, paintings and sketches. You can buy one through Other Criteria, or if you’re in my tax bracket, please enjoy the lovely photos they provided. (It’s like we own them, just virtually).