About
“Limits” is a relative term. Like beauty, it is often in the eye of the beholder.
—Chris Burden
Gagosian is pleased to present Measured, an exhibition of two large-scale works by Chris Burden: 1 Ton Crane Truck (2009) and Porsche with Meteorite (2013).
With a series of startling actions in the early 1970s, Burden challenged his own mental and physical limitations, and with them the boundaries of art and performance. Shut inside a locker for five days (Five Day Locker Piece, 1971), shot in the arm (Shoot, 1971), and nailed through the palms of his hands to the roof of his Volkswagen (Trans-fixed, 1974), he sought to reflect the violence that defined American politics, society, and media. Over the course of his career, the daring spirit of these early performances evolved into compelling large-scale sculptures that embody technical feats on an imposing scale. Burden used toys (figurines, train sets, Erector parts) as the building blocks for expansive scale models of skyscrapers, dystopic cities, and battlefields; conversely, he deployed actual vehicles (ships, trucks, and cars) in surreal and gravity-defying ways.
At the Britannia Street galleries, a functional 1964 F350 Ford crane-truck is held in balance with the weight of a one-ton cast-iron cube, and a Porsche 914 sports car is suspended in equilibrium with a meteorite. Both vehicles have been restored to pristine condition using contemporary materials, from fresh paint to new tires. In 1 Ton Crane Truck, the Ford is painted bright orange and the custom-made cube suspended from its crane boom announces its weight—“1 TON”—in recessed lettering, forcing the viewer to consider the physical capacities of the familiar American vehicle.
Burden pushed this precarious sense of balance even further in Porsche with Meteorite. Like a giant seesaw, a yellow Porsche and a nickel-iron meteorite hang from either end of a steel beam. The fulcrum, placed off-center, distributes the weight so that both objects are raised from the floor. The Porsche, at 993.4 kilograms (2,190 lbs.), weighs down the short end of the beam, and the meteorite, at 176.9 kilograms (390 lbs.), counterbalances it on the long end. Porsche with Meteorite thus draws attention to the relativity of size, weight, and value, juxtaposing refined German manufacture with an extraterrestrial metal chunk.
#ChrisBurdenMeasured
In Conversation
American Artist, Yayoi Shionoiri, and Sydney Stutterheim on Poetic Practical: The Unrealized Work of Chris Burden
Join Gagosian to celebrate the publication of Poetic Practical: The Unrealized Work of Chris Burden with a conversation between American Artist, Yayoi Shionoiri, and Sydney Stutterheim presented at the Kitchen, New York. Considering the book’s sustained examination of sixty-seven projects that remained incomplete at the time of Burden’s death in 2015, the trio discuss the various ways that an artist’s work and legacy live on beyond their lifetime.
At the Edge
Chris Burden: Prelude to a Lost Performance
Michael Auping tells the Quarterly’s Alison McDonald about the preparations for a performance by Chris Burden at the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Southern California in 1974—and the event’s abrupt cancellation—providing a glimpse into the mindset of a young, aggressive, and ambitious artist in the early stages of his career.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2022
The Summer 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, with two different covers—featuring Takashi Murakami’s 108 Bonnō MURAKAMI.FLOWERS (2022) and Andreas Gursky’s V & R II (2022).
Chris Burden: Poetic Practical
A new publication exploring the work that Chris Burden conceived but left unrealized delves into his archive to present sixty-seven visionary projects that reveal the aspirations of this formidable artist. The book’s editors, Sydney Stutterheim and Andie Trainer, discuss its development with Yayoi Shionoiri, executive director of the Chris Burden Estate.
Gagosian Quarterly Films
Chris Burden: Big Wrench
From January 23 to February 21, 2019, Gagosian Quarterly presented a special online screening of Chris Burden’s 1980 video Big Wrench.
Big Wrench
Sydney Stutterheim looks at the brief but feverish obsession behind this 1980 video by Chris Burden.
News
Screening and Visit
Chris Burden
Big Wrench
Friday, January 18, 2019, 6–8pm
Gagosian, Britannia Street, London
Join Gagosian Quarterly and MUBI for a screening of Chris Burden’s Big Wrench (1980) at Gagosian, Britannia Street, London. The event also provides a special opportunity to see the exhibition Chris Burden: Measured after hours before it closes on January 26, 2019. The short film will be shown at 6:10pm, 6:30pm, 6:50pm, 7:10pm, and 7:30pm. To attend the free event, RSVP to rsvplondon@gagosian.com.
Chris Burden, Big Wrench, 1980 (still) © 2019 Chris Burden/Licensed by the Chris Burden Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York