Damien Hirst Buys Fake Sex…Pistols!

According to The Independent, it seems that Damien Hirst is a bit pissed off that he has bought what seems to be fake Sex Pistols paraphernalia.

It all started when Hirst, also a collector of contemporary art, bought bagfuls of punk clothing from [Simon] Easton’s Punk Pistol website for around £80,000. Hirst believed the clothes, said to include the famous God Save the Queen T-shirt, were originals from the 1975-79 period when [Malcolm] McLaren, [ex-Sex Pistols manager] and his then partner, Vivienne Westwood, handmade them for sale in their King’s Road shop, Sex, which later became Seditionaries. McLaren is said to have taken one look at Hirst’s collection and condemned them as forgeries.

It gets better. McLaren has written an introduction to Easton’s book, called Sex and Seditionaries, of images based on Sex and Seditionaries clothing, which McLaren claims contains the items sold to Hirst, and which is already published as a limited edition in the UK and is for sale on Amazon for £300.

Now McLaren is attempting to stop a Rizzoli publishing firm from printing Easton’s book. In a letter to Rizzoli, McLaren threatened legal action: “If you go ahead, I insist first of all that you withdraw my name and my essay from the book. Mr Easton does not have the right to use this essay beyond the self-published limited edition. If I do not hear back from close of Tuesday next I shall have no alternative but to gain legal advice.”