LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Metropolis II

14 Jan 2012 - 23 Jan 2013

© Chris Burden
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by E. Koyama.
Courtesy of the Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Foundation
METROPOLIS II
14 January, 2012 – Ongoing

Metropolis II is an intense and a complex kinetic sculpture, modeled after a fast paced, frenetic modern city. Steel beams form an eclectic grid interwoven with an elaborate system of 18 roadways, including one 6 lane freeway, and HO scale train tracks. Miniature cars speed through the city at 240 scale miles per hour; every hour, the equivalent of approximately 100,000 cars circulate through the dense network of buildings. According to Burden, "The noise, the continuous flow of the trains, and the speeding toy cars, produces in the viewer the stress of living in a dynamic, active and bustling 21st Century city."