Chris Burden
Born 1946 in Boston, USA
Lives and works in Topanga, California, USA
Chris Burden used paper in his body of work, which ranges from crude drawings that serve as preparatory works for his sculptures, to collages of reviews of his prior shows and grids of his cancelled bank checks from the 1970s. Represented the group exhibition "Conceptual Paper" - with works by Vito Acconci, Richard Artschwager, Zaha Hadid, Peter Hujar, Yayoi Kusama, Dennis Oppenheim, William Pope.L, Paul Thek - with a jewel of a schematic drawing, is his piece entitled "Samson", which involved the revolving door of the museum the work was exhibited in. Every time a visitor entered the museum, a contraption would cause a beam connected to the revolving door to extend horizontally in both directions, boring into the walls of the institution and thereby literally undermining the structural integrity of the museum! A dangerous but profound work seen here in a very workman-like execution, which makes the piece seem ready for casual application in a construction site.
Burden's solo exhibitions include "14 Magnolia Doubles" at the South London Gallery (London, 2006); "Chris Burden" at the Baltic Center of Contemporary Art (Gateshead, 2002); "Tower of Power" at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (Vienna, 2002); "When Robots Rule: The Two Minute Airplane Factory" at the Tate Gallery (London, 1999); and "Chris Burden: A Twenty Year Survey" at the Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, 1988). His permanent outdoor installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) entitled Urban Light was unveiled in 2008, comprising of 202 restored antiques streetlights. Later the same year, What My Dad Gave Me, a 65-foot skyscraper made entirely of Erector Set parts was installed at Rockefeller Center in New York City. His work is featured in prominent museum collections such as the LACMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, Belgium; the Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporanea, Brazil; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others.
EXHIBITIONS:
26.04. – 03.06.2007
Conceptual Paper : Vito Acconci, Richard Artschwager, Chris Burden, Zaha Hadid, Peter Hujar, Yayoi Kusama, Dennis Oppenheim, William Pope.L, Paul Thek
(Group exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Zurich)
Press release:
Chris Burden, Drawing of Spinning Dervish V, 1987, ink on paper, 32 x 39 x 5 cm , #BURD0001