ART-PRESENTATION: Chris Burden-Buddha’s Fingers

Chris Burden had produced some of the most shocking works in the history of 20th Century art, including being “crucified” to a Volkswagen Beetle or having himself shot. The violent images of the war in Vietnam and the television media in general provided a background setting for Burden. His work further challenged viewers to take stock of their own moral compasses and widen their understanding of the ways in which it is possible for art to serve humanity.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Gallery Archive

The exhibition “Buddha’s Fingers”, presents one of Chris Burden’s last works, related to “Urban Light”, the Burden’s permanent installation of 202 lamp posts, which stands at the entrance of Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2000, Burden began collecting the street lamps that used to line residential streets in Los Angeles during the 1920s and 1930s, and repurposed them as sculptural installations. The work in the exhibition is a dense cluster of 32 antique cast-iron vernacular street lamps, electrified with cool, bright LED bulbs and standing almost 4 meter tall, the hexagonal lamp bases are set in a tight honeycomb formation. Its title refers to the fingered citrus fruit “Buddha’s Hand”, a recurrent still-life motif and subject in classical Asian art, and a religious symbol of happiness, longevity, and good fortune. Beginning with a series of startling actions in the early ’70s, Chris Burden challenged his own mental and physical limitations, as well as the boundaries of art and Performance. His master’s thesis consisted of shutting himself in a locker for five days without food, with a five-gallon jug of water above him and an empty five-gallon jug below him for waste. Burden was excited about the idea that his body and his actions could be considered a work of art with little or no other materials involved. His pieces were usually done in front of a small audience who had heard of the event by word-of-mouth, he did not advertise in advance of his performances. He was shot in the arm in “Shoot” or nailed through the palms of his hands to the roof of a car in “Trans-fixed”, he wanted to reflect the violence that defined American politics, society, and media at the time. Burden soon channeled the daring spirit of these early Performances into imposing technical feats that similarly explored challenges both individual and social. He used toys as the building blocks for expansive scale models of buildings, dystopic cities, and battlefields, while deploying actual vehicles (ships, trucks, and cars) in surreal and improbable ways. Like “Metropolis II”,  a kinetic sculpture that Burden represented what was thinking cities started to look like in the not-too-distant future, inspired by the 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Conveyor belts and magnets power the 1100 miniature cars. The intricacies of all the roads and bridges fitting together, the constant movement, and the ongoing noise of the cars reminds viewers of the stress of fast-paced city life and the fact that soon there will have to be major structural changes to roadways in order to compensate for an ever-growing population.

Info: Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, Duration: 19/1-20/2/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.gagosian.com