Chris Burden
22 Sep 2012 - 02 Jun 2013
CHRIS BURDEN
Curator: Tessa Praun
September 22–December 9, 2012 and February 8–June 2, 2013
In 1975 he designed and built B-Car, a fully functional single-seater car. Most parts were handmade and the design reflects many decisions made during the process. The intention was to build a car that could travel up to 100 mph (160 km/h) and a distance of 100 miles per gallon. The exhibition also includes drawings, photographs and texts that document the project and reveal Burden’s vision of how a car should be.
For his solo exhibition at Magasin 3 in 1999, Burden built four bridges of metal toy construction parts, the first in a series of works to use these materials. Two of these bridges are in the Magasin 3 collection and are now shown together again. Mexican Bridge is a model of a cast iron bridge designed in the 1860s for the Mexican railroad system to span the Metlac Gorge (1000 foot wide). But the bridge was never built. Chris Burden found a drawing of the bridge in a book about the Mexican railroad and decided to build a large-scale model of it with toy construction parts.
Before attempting this project he first designed and constructed 1⁄4 Ton Bridge in order to test the possibilities of the Meccano and Erector Set parts and designed to hold his own body weight. Upon completion he tested it and the structure could in fact hold 500 pounds (a quarter ton), which he documented in the photograph Static Test (2000). The poster for his exhibition at Magasin 3 (1999) shows Burden himself standing on 1/4 Ton Bridge.
In 2008 he installed a 20-meter high skyscraper sculpture at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. What My Dad Gave Me included an estimated one million Erector Set pieces and weighed seven tons. Burden’s interest in transportation has continued with his latest work Metropolis II (2010), a miniature city in which 1,100 toy cars travel at a speed equal to 240 mph (386 km/h).
Curator: Tessa Praun
September 22–December 9, 2012 and February 8–June 2, 2013
In 1975 he designed and built B-Car, a fully functional single-seater car. Most parts were handmade and the design reflects many decisions made during the process. The intention was to build a car that could travel up to 100 mph (160 km/h) and a distance of 100 miles per gallon. The exhibition also includes drawings, photographs and texts that document the project and reveal Burden’s vision of how a car should be.
For his solo exhibition at Magasin 3 in 1999, Burden built four bridges of metal toy construction parts, the first in a series of works to use these materials. Two of these bridges are in the Magasin 3 collection and are now shown together again. Mexican Bridge is a model of a cast iron bridge designed in the 1860s for the Mexican railroad system to span the Metlac Gorge (1000 foot wide). But the bridge was never built. Chris Burden found a drawing of the bridge in a book about the Mexican railroad and decided to build a large-scale model of it with toy construction parts.
Before attempting this project he first designed and constructed 1⁄4 Ton Bridge in order to test the possibilities of the Meccano and Erector Set parts and designed to hold his own body weight. Upon completion he tested it and the structure could in fact hold 500 pounds (a quarter ton), which he documented in the photograph Static Test (2000). The poster for his exhibition at Magasin 3 (1999) shows Burden himself standing on 1/4 Ton Bridge.
In 2008 he installed a 20-meter high skyscraper sculpture at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. What My Dad Gave Me included an estimated one million Erector Set pieces and weighed seven tons. Burden’s interest in transportation has continued with his latest work Metropolis II (2010), a miniature city in which 1,100 toy cars travel at a speed equal to 240 mph (386 km/h).