The Museum of Design Atlanta’s newest exhibit “Wire and Wood” explores the basics of guitar design. Instruments plays by famous musicians including Kurt Cobain, Jack White, Buck Owens and Junior Brown will be on display along with a “build-your-own-guitar” wall. MODA created the guitar exhibit in order to appeal to a wider audience about the field of design.
The exhibit discusses the past, present, and future for guitars and luthiers. Among the famous luthiers, it discusses the founder of the solid-body electric guitar, Leo Fender, known for the Fender guitar.
His design of the Fender Broadcaster (later known as the Telecaster) was a result of engineering, rather than design. Although Leo Fender did not know how to play a guitar, it didn’t stop him from becoming one of the biggest successes in the industry.
The exhibit also displays several guitars which have been played by famous artists. When discussing how each guitar has become synonymous with it’s famous counterpart, curator Todd Vaught said, “That was another way to talk about design, an artist’s image is designed. Talking about the physical and aesthetic aspects of a guitar relative to a person’s image, sound not withstanding, comes through the guitar very strongly.”
The exhibit will be on display now through Sept. 29.
