What happens when art meets art? On Saturday, visual arts connoisseurs and those more musically inclined can find out.
For their 120th anniversary, Gibson Brands Inc will unveil a Guitar Art exhibition at Hard Rock Café in Dubai consisting of 18 Gibson guitars. No two will look alike, as each piece has been customised by a different UAE-based artist, all falling under the theme of “Peace”.
“The way I choose my artists, most of the time, is purely because [the art is] low brow,” said curator Mo Abedin, 27, who has been curating shows around the UAE for seven years now. He will also have a guitar on show.
“It’s something that everyone can connect with — they see it, they understand it, they love it.”
After the Hard Rock launch, the show will shift to the Waterfall Atrium at Dubai Mall for two weeks starting Sunday. As Abedin puts it, “Guitar Art” will “invade” the space, forcing people to pay attention to something that hadn’t been there the day before.
“This is why I do this, because it engages the public,” Abedin said. “It creates a discussion — it creates conversation. There’s a moment of awe when you first see it.”
The customisations have been applied to Gibson’s 2014 Model Year guitars, which include a 120th anniversary inlay at the 12th fret. No other such guitar will be manufactured after December 31. The guitars will be sold through a silent auction process, with proceeds from the sales going to Peace One Day Foundation, as well as local charity.
Henry Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO of Gibson Brands, told tabloid! that an “Art Wars” exhibition held at the Middle East & Comic Con, where local artists did creative treatments of iconic pop culture images, was what first sparked the company’s interest.
“We wanted to see how these gifted artists would treat another iconic pop culture image — the Gibson guitar — as well as build on this opportunity to support charitable causes and build closer relations with our friends and supporters in the Middle East,” he added.
Forty-seven-year-old Julal Luqman, an Emirati resident and a full-time artist who’s been creating works for 23 years, took apart the brand new, shiny black Gibson, bit by bit, and waited for inspiration to hit.
“Normally, I take ugly things, and I turn them into something, which, in my eyes, is beautiful — but to start with something as beautiful as the Gibson Guitar ...” Luqman said, trailing off into a laugh. “I did the usual cutting and drilling and uglifying, and then I thought: this really looks ugly! But I just continued working on it and working on it ... I chopped up the guitar into little pieces, and then I put them all back together again, and then I just went with it.”
Five days later, Luqman reached a level of artistry he was pleased with, and even included a poem of his own on the back of the guitar, all the while maintaining the instrument’s functionality. The rustic-looking piece is stunning, with visible screws and nostalgic patches of woody surfaces. He titled it We Hold the Key, a nod to the power of the people.
Forty-one-year-old designer Flordeliza Pesigan from the Philippines had lived in the UAE for 17 years before moving primarily to Bali. She returned to Dubai for the opportunity to be part of the Gibson exhibition, and used acrylic paints to focus her customisation around the importance of inner peace.
“It’s titled Entwined, and for me — our world peace is not really through politics or government or organised relations, because all those institutions promote segregation,” she said. “My artwork has faces of different races, but I don’t want to separate them as segregated ... The path to world peace is universality.
Thirty-nine-year-old Liz Ramos Prado is a Peruvian graphic designer who has been based in the UAE for seven years. She has titled her guitar piece Hope, using acrylic paint, watercolour and charcoal.
“I think my work is a very straightforward one, so what I will show on the guitar is two different sides of what people can see in the universe,” she explained. Her work will display the contrast of positive on one side, and negative on the other. “One side is brighter, and one side is dark.”
The Guitar Art show will be accompanied by a second exhibition for two days only, on Saturday and Sunday at the Hard Rock Café, titled Gibson Through the Lens”. It is a touring photographic display showcasing some of rock’s biggest legends.
“The guitar had to part of the [70 chosen images] without looking like an advertising shot, showing the passion and intimacy between a musician and their guitar,” curator Dave Brolan told tabloid!. “The end result is a unique, museum quality collection of fine art photographs of the greatest musicians of our time by some of the most legendary music photographers in the world.”
It includes prints of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Angus Young, Frank Zappa, Eric Clapton, Bob Marley, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Les Paul, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Sir Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Slash, Dave Grohl, Lenny Kravitz, Jon Bon Jovi, Jack White and Noel Gallagher.
The launch of Guitar Art will run between 4pm and 7pm on Saturday, and is open to the public. The band Xander and the Peace Pirates will perform.
