INHALE is a cultural platform where artists are presented, where great projects are given credit and readers find inspiration. Think about Inhale as if it were a map: we can help you discover which are the must-see events all over the world, what is happening now in the artistic and cultural world as well as guide you through the latest designers’ products. Inhale interconnects domains that you are interested in, so that you will know all the events, places, galleries, studios that are a must-see. We have a 360 degree overview on art and culture and a passion to share.

Tell us what you think:
THANK YOU FOR YOUR MESSAGE!
Share this site to:
Subscribe to Newsletter
Thank you! You are registered to our weekly newsletter.
Site Search
10 years, 5 months ago
CHRIS BURDEN: EXTREME MEASURES AT NEW MUSEUM
Filled under: Front Page, Visual arts
ADS CURATED BY INHALE
Related to post:
from
'Biography' presents a wide selection of works from Elmgreen & Dragset's complex universe, including sculpture, performance and interactive installations. Works from the late 1990s onwards will be shown together with recent projects, ...
Photo Anders Sune Berg
perrotin.com

According to Lisa Phillips, the director of the New Museum, “Chris Burden: Extreme Measures” is the most ambitious show ever staged at the museum. The exhibition, which Phillips organized and which opened today, is full of big, heavy objects that needed to be creatively brought into and distributed around the museum building: “One Ton Truck” on the ground floor (because it wouldn’t fit in the elevator); two cannons on the third floor (placed over a beam so the floor wouldn’t collapse); a Porsche and a meteorite holding each other in balance in mid-air, hovering over the fourth. But only one piece — a smallish sculpture in the niche between the third and fourth floors accessible by a narrow stairwell — requires full-time security.

“Tower of Power” is a stack of 100 one-kilo gold bullion ingots the size and shape of chocolate bars, arranged in a ziggurat formation, that’s worth over $4 million. To view this pile of gleaming, spotlighted gold, which stands roughly 12 inches high atop a four-foot pedestal, visitors must place their bags and belongings in a locker before heading up the stairs to be met by an imposing armed security guard.

The last time the work was to be shown was in 2009, when Gagosian Gallery secured the gold for “One Ton, One Kilo,” an exhibition at its Los Angeles space featuring both the Tower of Power and the One Ton Truck. But the bullion ended up being frozen by federal authorities when the Texas billionaire investor Allen Stanford, from whose company it was purchased, was accused of fraudulent investment activity — and the show never happened. “We expected the guys with guns to steal it,” Burden told ARTINFO, “but it was the men with coat and ties.”

Installation view photo blouinartinfo.com

Installation view
photo blouinartinfo.com

Burden first conceived of the work in the 1970s, when he was with art dealer Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. “I was going to have four bars, bigger bars, and against the wall with an armed guard” Burden said about the gold bullion. “The guard was a trick in mind-thought. People would think, it’s fake gold, and he has the armed guard there to fool us into thinking it’s real gold, but it would be real gold.”

"Tower of Power,"1985 photo blouinartinfo.com

“Tower of Power,”1985
photo blouinartinfo.com

While “Tower of Power” doesn’t seem to bear much resemblance to Burden’s other work — either his early performance pieces, which are barely touched on in the New Museum exhibition, or his later sculptural work with its seeming fixation on guns, machinery, and war — the connection becomes clear when Burden speaks, recalling the neutron bomb technology of the 1970s and ’80s.

“It was a bomb that didn’t explode things, but sent out rays that would kill all living flesh,” he said. “The only thing that will protect you from the neutron bomb is ten feet of gold. The neutron rays can’t get you.”

The gold at the New Museum is, as before, borrowed. But this time, it was made possible by New Museum trustee Lonti Ebers, and should be there for the duration of the show.

"Trans-fixed," 1974 Performance on Speedway Avenue, Venice, California photo blouinartinfo.com

“Trans-fixed,” 1974
Performance on Speedway Avenue, Venice, California
photo blouinartinfo.com

"The Big Wheel," 1979 Three-ton, eight-foot diameter, cast-iron flywheel powered by a 1968 Benelli 250cc motorcycle photo blouinartinfo.com

“The Big Wheel,” 1979
Three-ton, eight-foot diameter, cast-iron flywheel powered by a 1968 Benelli 250cc motorcycle
photo blouinartinfo.com

"All the Submarines of the United States of America," 1987 625 miniature cardboard submarines photo blouinartinfo.com

“All the Submarines of the United States of America,” 1987
625 miniature cardboard submarines
photo blouinartinfo.com

"L.A.P.D. Uniforms," 1993 Wool serge, metal, leather, wood, plastic photo blouinartinfo.com

“L.A.P.D. Uniforms,” 1993
Wool serge, metal, leather, wood, plastic
photo blouinartinfo.com

via blouinartinfo.com

Leave a Reply

Michael Craig-Martin at Gagosian

[contact-form-7 id="26" title="Contact form 1"]