Cynthia Plaster Caster—the artist known for casting the erect phalluses of famous rock musicians like Jimi Hendrix, the Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley, and Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra—has died. Her representatives confirmed that she passed away in Chicago earlier today (April 21) following a long illness. She was 74 years old.
Cynthia Albritton was born in Chicago in 1947. While attending art school in the 1960s, she was given an assignment to create a plaster cast of “something solid that could retain its shape.” While others might reach for a seashell or toothbrush, Albritton—who would later describer herself as a “recovering groupie”—found her muse in the frontmen of her favorite rock bands. Specifically, their penises. Albritton’s first famous subject belonged to Jimi Hendrix, who agreed to be cast in 1968 while on tour in Chicago.
The following year, Albritton cast two members of the MC5: Wayne Kramer, and drummer Dennis Thompson. Unfortunately, Kramer’s plaster mixture was botched. “It set before he could push his dick all the way into the mold—only the head got in,” Albritton told The Chicago Reader in 2002. The sculpture wound up, as a result, a bit on the short side. “Wayne quite literally got the shaft,” Albritton noted.
Albritton’s work eventually grabbed the attention of Frank Zappa, who never subjected himself to casting, but who became a sort of patron of the artist. Zappa moved Albritton out to Los Angeles, and after her apartment was broken into 1971, Zappa and Albritton entrusted over two-dozen casts to Zappa’s legal partner Herb Cohen for safekeeping. However Cohen held onto the pieces much longer than Albritton intended, and it took several years and a court appearance for her to get all but three of them back.
In 2000, Albritton held her first plaster cast exhibition in New York City. She would go on to exhibit her work at MoMA PS1 in Queens several years later. In addition to casting roughly 50 famous phalluses, Albritton also made plaster replicas of breasts. Her collection included pairs from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, Sally Timms of the Mekons, Peaches, and Karen O.
Albritton has been immortalized in songs like Kiss’ “Plaster Caster,” while a 2001 documentary of the same name chronicled her artistic legacy. In 2010, Albritton ran for mayor of Chicago on the “Hard Party” ticket.
In a 2018 interview, Albritton discussed the process of making her “sweet babies,” as she often referred to her casts. “Once they’re submerged in that mold, they…are kind of numb… I feel for them, and I’m very hopeful that they come out looking their prettiest,” she told Lucretia Tye Jasmine. Albritton also spoke about the enhanced vulnerability that accompanied her work. “Their human flaws make them kind of attractive,” she said of her rockstar subjects. “I was shocked and delighted to find that they were as insecure as I was. That kind of made me see them in a different light…They’re the same as us.”
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