Stars of Jim Irsay’s renowned guitar collection will be on display at Indiana University Bloomington for the next year as part of an exhibition called Amped IU.
Aside from his day job as the owner, chairman, and CEO of NFL's Indianapolis Colts, Irsay is an avid collector of history-steeped six-strings, and the new exhibition aims to celebrate the music and stories that ice his collection.
The wider exhibition highlights the story of modern guitar and will be housed in the McCalla building of IU Bloomington’s campus. It will run from September 27, 2024, to September 2025.
Among the businessman's collection is Kurt Cobain's Smells Like Teen Spirit Fender Mustang, bought by Irsay at auction for $4.5 million in 2022. At that time, it became the second most valuable guitar to be sold at auction, beaten only by another Cobain guitar – his heavily modified Martin D-18E MTV Unplugged acoustic guitar.
That gives a sense of perspective as to how illustrious many of the guitars in Irsay's ever-growing collection are.
But, as Irsay himself says, the collection isn’t simply buying up guitars for his own personal glory. He wants to preserve key pieces of music history, and share them with the world.
“I am thrilled to preserve and protect another piece of American culture that changed the way we looked at the world,” Irsay said of his eye-watering Mustang purchase in '22.
Moreover, a portion of the proceeds went to Kicking The Stigma, Irsay's national initiative to raise awareness about mental health issues, and erase the stigma around them. This, he said, made the purchase “even more special to me.”
The initiative was also the beneficiary of a mammoth auction of Steve Vai gear later that year. The collection included a myriad of electric guitars, acoustics, rack effects units, amplifiers, and even a motorbike.
David Gilmour's Black Strat, heard on Comfortably Numb, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, and Money, and bought for $3.975m, and Bob Dylan’s infamous Newport Folk Festival Stratocaster, are also key parts of Irsay's collection. The latter was bought for nearly $1m after it was found in the back of a woman's attic.
The new exhibition will hold a grand opening event on September 27 (12-5 p.m.), which coincides with the IU Family Weekend.
It will feature, for one day only, the gems of Irsay's stable, among them guitars played and owned by Jerry Garcia, Kurt Cobain – expected to be that multi-million dollar Mustang – Eric Clapton, and many other legendary musicians.
There will also be a guided tour of the gilded collection on opening day, alongside performances from IU Jacobs School of Music students.
Some of the vintage guitars set to be on display for the full duration of the exhibit include an 1850s CF Martin guitar, a 1910 Gibson Model U Harp Guitar, and a 1939 Rickenbacker Silver Hawaiian Lap Steel, together helping chart the instrument’s evolution.
Two ‘59 builds – a Sunburst Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson Les Paul Standard – will also feature, alongside a 1964 Firebird V.
Beyond guitars, it will feature artifacts from game-changing artists such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, and Paul Stanley.
Irsay has been adding to his collection, driven by a love for music, history, and pop culture, for decades. It has been exhibited across the USA in recent years as a “traveling museum,” while numerous artifacts have also been loaned to museums and nonprofits for display and research.
Readers can register for self-guided tours via the IU website.
