Air Guitar: art reconsidering rock music

‘Air Guitar: Art Reconsidering Rock Music’, was a touring group exhibition curated by Emma Mahony, curator at the Hayward Gallery, as an independent project. The exhibition toured to the Milton Keynes Gallery, Cornerhouse in Manchester, Angel Row in Nottingham and Tullie House Carlisle. The exhibition included Stephen Willats, Sam Durant, Christian Marclay and Dave Muller.

The exhibition explored the area of artists and their use of music within their practice or how music specifically influences/ed their work. Voorsanger’s piece for the exhibition was a large-scale neon that said ‘This one's about whiskey’ (Shane McGowan from the Pogues). It comes from a series of works that explored the specific moment that a performer would interact with their audience by speaking normally or yelling things out to them, making their interaction more intimate (e.g. ‘I love you LA’, Donna Summer). The moment the performer steps outside of what is expected, singing and dancing within a concert setting, the concert alters from something rehearsed to something 'real' for them - the audience. This piece was very well received and was often used in the reviews and publicity material for the show.

A catalogue was produced for the exhibition ‘Air Guitar: Art Reconsidering Rock Music’, published by Milton Keynes Gallery, 2002 (ISBN: 0-9536755-7-2). There was also a panel discussion held at the Cornerhouse Gallery in Manchester chaired by Tony Wilson in 2002. Tony Wilson was the founder of Factory Records who discovered some of Manchester's iconic bands, such as ‘Joy Division’ and ‘The Happy Mondays’. The topics included fame, musical references within fine art and cross-over cultures.