Chris Burden (1946-2015)
"Doomed" (1975)
The
performances of Chris Burden are intentionally shocking and disturbing and have
the capacity to affect "viewers" encountering them through their
documentation and retelling. Burden creates an
immediately real experience for his audience members; their
life-threatening quality transforms their experience from an a viewer into that
of participant and witness. I think this connects to the confusion of illusion and reality in the "fake hold-up" scenario that Baudrillard describes. In the same way "Of the same order as the impossibility of rediscovering an
absolute level of the real, is the impossibility of staging an illusion.
Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible”
(Baudrillard, 38).
Many of Burden's pieces draw attention to real-world
stuff such as person-to-person contracts and the brutality of war. Although his
performances are meant to be ephemeral, their residue such as
"relics" (nails, jackets) and documentation (photography and sound recording)
are important factors in historicizing his work. Burden also raises the question of authorship-- why isn't the shooter in "Shoot Piece" (link contains footage Burden being shot in performance) or any other helper referenced besides him? Legal reasons or interest in anonymity? In my research I was surprised
to learn how corporate this guy is—I had encountered him a number of times in
reading but only with works like “Shoot Piece”. I didn’t know that he was the
first artist to be represented at Gagosian Gallery and that he completely
changed his work to large-scale sculptures mid-career (which evoke the “real” in a
different, more subdued kind of way). It's challenging for me to articulate an opinion on Burden's work...I feel like it's bothersome but in a very boring way. I think I like the work Marina and Ulay much more because of the emotion and passion connected to them, whereas Burden is entirely monotone and robot-like about his pursuits.
"Relation in Time" (1977)
No comments:
Post a Comment