guitar art

Gibson Birdland

Zebra Finches perch on a white les paul style electric guitar

French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot has created an installation for the Barbican in London where you can watch a flock of zebra finches playing electric guitars. It's a walk-though aviary where the flock of zebra finches have set up home with their collection of electric guitars and other instruments. As the birds go about their daily routine, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they strum the strings creating their own music.

Cardboard guitars

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Chris Gilmour is a UK born artist currently living in Udine, Italy, who specialises in life size cardboard scupltures of everyday objects. His work includes three full size gibson style guitars: an ES-335, a single cutaway Jazz guitar and a flying V.
Chris claims his first large sculpture was a cardboard cow, “to sell to farmers in order to replace the cattle destroyed by BSE, so that the fields don’t look empty”.

Giant metal guitar

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Mike Shubic worked in marketing for 16 years, then one day he decided to quit the day job to make and sell outdoor sculptures. This giant guitar is one of his creations: it measures 12 feet by 4 feet (although he can make it to any size). It is made from metal, and Mike says it can actually be played. It is still available for sale for $6500.

Teenar the Guitar Girl

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Teenar is a guitar made from a girl mannequin. Because she is armless it looks creepily like the player's arms are really her arms. Guitar maker, musician and artist Lou Reimuller from Richmond, Virginia made her in 1986, around the same time as the film Mannequin, a romantic comedy starring Kim Cattrall as the mannequin and Andrew McCarthy as her love interest. There is no record of Teenar's film career, maybe she needs a better agent, but she has probably aged better than Kim Cattrall.

Les Paul coffee table

Les Paul coffe table

This guitar coffee table was made by self taught metal artist Timothy Adam from Grand Rapids in Michigan. It is an oversized handmade version of a Les Paul around 5 feet long, 2 feet wide and 18 inches high. Made from mild steel it has a blue tinted clear coat.

The Les Paul table in the picture was sold to Barneys department store in New York in May, but Timothy can make you a custom order in any style from fender to the flying V.

With prices at $3,100 it might be cheaper to put your coffee mug on a real Les Paul!

GIRL

Girl brand's James C. Larsen makes guitars as they should be made, each one is a work of art and great fun. Money is not the bottom line with this guy! The guitars are loosely telecaster shaped, but in James Larsen's hands the telecaster is clearly a canvas for artistic expression. Necks are maple with ebony or cocobolo. The bodies have an outside rim of anodized aluminium, with a wood core. The backs are phenolic or formica on birch plywood, and the tops can be almost anything: formica, linen, plastic, zinc, rusted steel, street signs!

12 necked Stratocaster

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Like radioactive giraffes, guitars have been sprouting extra necks for some time now. Witness Jimmy Page's double neck SG on live versions of “Stairway To Heaven” or the guy out of Cheap Trick with his many-necked guitar. Some guitarists have exploited the extra necks to musical effect, like ambidextrous virtuoso Michael Angelo.

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