Damien Hirst Covers The Red Hot Chili Peppers

British Artist Damien , designed the latest album packaging for the “Californication” band Red Hot Chili Peppers, title “I’m With You”. The former YBA, bad boy of the London art scene has hit the mainstream of popular culture with his choice of a bands to bed with. Given the brief, all is forgiven the album’s design is deeply witty depicting the image of a fly sitting on top of a pill. This is a theme that travels through many of Hirst’s earlier works including his restaurant designs for the Pharmacy, where medicine intertwined with food in a sterile clinic of gastronomy.

Record sleeve art has always been at the forefront of the avant garde. Hirst is not the first well known art figure to design an album jacket. In 1967 Peter Blake created the Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band sleeve for The Beatles. Also that year Warhol produced a peel-able banana for the Velvet Underground’s Heroin album. Warhol also created the zip front Sticky Fingers sleeve for the Rolling Stones in 1972 and Jenny Savile another YBA painter produced covers for the Manic Street Preachers.

Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London from 1986 to 1989 and is considered by many to be the leading figure of the group known as “Young British Artists”. The YBAs are characterized by their entrepreneurial spirit, independence and their ability to manipulate the media.Hirst dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. His early career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, however over the last few years Hirst has distanced himself from this association. Hirst’s work explores the uncertainty at the core of human experience; love, life, death, loyalty and betrayal. His work has been exhibited widely,in Britain, the USA, Australia, and Europe. Work is included in many public and private collections. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995  

Hirst now prepares for his largest museum show to date at Tate Modern to coincide with the Olympics in 2012.

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