Next month, the Phallological Museum in Iceland will exhibit a replica of Jimi Hendrix’s penis.
The cast, which was produced by Cynthia Albritton in February 1968 while Hendrix was on tour in Chicago, will be revealed in early June at a private event at the museum’s headquarters in downtown Reykjavik.
Albritton, who also made penis castings for Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks and Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, donated the cast to the Icelandic institution just before her death in April.
“It is with mixed emotions that The Phallological Museum announces that Cynthia Plaster Caster Albritton decided to donate one of the few castings of Jimi Hendrix to the museum prior to her dying,” the museum announced on Twitter yesterday (May 23).
Gene Simmons created a song called ‘Plaster Caster’ for KISS’ 1977 album ‘Love Gun,’ which includes the lyrics: “The plaster’s gettin’ tougher and my love is perfection/ A token of my love for her collection,” though Albritton never used him as a topic.
Her first plaster cast exhibition was held in New York in 2000, and she would have have work shown at MoMA PS1 a few years later. Jessica Villines’ documentary Plaster Caster, released in 2001, was about her.
Albritton incorporated male filmmakers and female artists’ breasts in her work in the latter half of her career, with names like Peaches, Karen O, and Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadie among her collection.
Sigurur Hjartarson founded the Icelandic Phallological Museum in 1997. It has the world’s largest collection of penises and penile parts, with almost 300 penises and penile parts from every mammal in Iceland as well as several other species. More information is available here.