«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

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.

-Artlyst
July 14 2011