The Gallery of Everything presents Guitar Shop: a sculptural installation of vernacular musical instruments from America and beyond. The exhibition also includes the collaged (musical) objects of Felipe Jesus Consalvos: a self-taught Cuban art-maker, whose satirical and political opus was discovered long after his death.
Connecting the two is a manner of manufacture, a style born in the spirit of make-do. For the string (and no-string) instruments in Guitar Shop reflect 50 non-conformist makers, their names lost to the currents of time, their talismans reflecting profound and personal experiences of making and playing.
These remarkable objects — from improvised banjos and box guitars, to violins and tambourines — are more than just tools for making music. They are spectacular vernacular sculpture: some playable, some playable no more, some which combat the laws of physics and impede any possible usage.
For available musical instruments, please click here.
Another maker whose practice incorporated instruments, Consalvos used political collage to skewer contemporary culture. As an immigrant, he relished the tropes of American jargon, taking pot-shots at the great and the good. Thus he reflected his (unwitting) peers, Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Cornell, and foretold the satire of Peter Blake and Terry Gilliam.
Since its discovery, Consalvos’s work has been exhibited internationally at Kunsthal Rotterdam, The Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, and Philadelphia Museum of Art. His oeuvre is part of a number of collections including Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia), Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago), and High Museum of Art (Atlanta).
The gallery has a unique selection of works by Felipe Jesus Consalvos, his first solo exhibition in the UK. To view the collection, please click here.
Other works are available in an online digital exhibition. Please click on any of the links below:
For 2D works, please click here.
For 2D series, please click here.
For large 2D works, please click here.
For 3D works, please click here.
To accompany Guitar Shop - The Gallery of Everything presents Strings: an assembly of self-playing musical instruments designed by the architect/designer/artist Ron Arad, in collaboration with master violin maker, Stefan-Peter Greiner.
Strings consists of four violins, carefully adapted to perform music autonomously through their vibrations alone. The magical and mystical atmosphere is balanced by absolute acoustic authenticity. By presenting instruments without musicians, Arad invites us to consider the relationship between the object and the act of performance.
For available works, please click here.
