Photo Galleries
The Art of the Stompbox
The exhibition will trace the development and use of effects pedals in American rock ’n’ roll, jazz, blues, rock, and the experimental music scene. The Art of the Stompbox will showcase a variety of effects pedals ranging from industrially designed tone-control boxes of the 1940s to the most recent explosion of hand-made designs. The exhibition will also examine the growing movement of hand-made art stompboxes produced by individual builders’ “boutique companies,” often in collaboration with artists.
The Art of the Stompbox will exhibit for the first time a great number of hand-painted, screen-printed, or sculpted effect pedals; drawing attention to this recent phenomenon in contemporary culture that represents a demand and passion for transcendent tone, as well as visual style. Also featured will be a film, produced by Henry Kaiser with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, exploring the use and culture of stompboxes in American music.
The exhibition is developed in close collaboration with Henry Kaiser, experimental musician and guitarist, who is acclaimed for his experimental and artistic use of stompboxes, and with University of California, San Diego’s Jacobs School of Rock as well as the Department of Visual Arts. Saura Naderi from MyLab at CALIT2 at UCSD is spearheading interdisciplinary teams of students, with backgrounds ranging from engineering to visual arts and music, to support the exhibition by designing interactive components and contributing contemporary designs of effects pedals. Visual arts students will paint and contribute artistic work to this project. Student work will compliment the art display of the exhibition that will feature some of the most acclaimed contemporary pedal painters from the 1990s and 2000s, including Laura Bennet and Jayson Myrold.
To learn more, visit www.museumofmakingmusic.org.