Jalopnik
On Monday, we flashed back to the early 1970s and madman artist/seminal art hoon Chris Burden, who had himself nailed to a VW Bug. At the time, we promised more on Crazy Chris, who has in the intervening years graduated to a rather exalted position in the art world (many commenters in the first post pointed to other Burden works). Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties yesterday which delayed us a bit. Anyway, not long after Burden's adventure with the nails and the Beetle, the artist once again proved himself to be a true California boy and a proto-greenie as well as a hoon with a conscience, creating a piece of art that was all about driving as an esthetic statement.
It was 1975. American had recently been wrung out by OPEC and gas lines. Subcompact imports were beginning to make a dent. All manner of alterna-transport was being explored, even as the nation finally extracted itself for good from The Nam.
Burden undertook work on a handmade, one-person hybrid of bicycle, automobile, and airplane. In his own words:
I set the goal of completing the car for two shows in Europe. I saw building the car as a means toward the end of driving it between galleries in Amsterdam and Paris as a performance. When I arrived in Amsterdam, I knew that the accomplishment of constructing the car had become for me the essential experience. I had already realized the most elaborate fantasy of my life. Driving the car as a performance was not important after the ordeal of bringing it into existence.
"...the most elaborate fantasy of my life." Artists in the 20th century had an intense relationship with the automobile, but probably none moreso than Burden. The ultimate installation, titled "B-Car," was exhibited in April of 1977. According to Burden, there were 120 design drawing included in the show. We'll see what we can do to track some down.
In the meantime, look forward to our next installment, when we recall Ed Ruscha, a speeding Buick, and a typewriter.
Comments
Talk about a revolution! He is like the Jimi Hendrix of automotive "art" in my book!
My problem with performance art is the following: had this been a post about a cool car some dude built, with a little writeup about how he liked building it more than actually driving it (as is often the case), I'd say "cool".
But instead we get "the accomplishment of constructing the car had become for me the essential experience. I had already realized the most elaborate fantasy of my life.", which causes me to roll my eyes at his self-importance.
@Mad_Science: Truth. What an eye opener it was for him to do something that less enlightened folk do every day.
So.... Did he drive it to and from the galleries? Or did he build it and it didn't actually work, so he made up that "essential experience" BS?
Sounds to me like he simply needs a subscription to 'Wooden Boats' and forget all about the French hyperaesthetic of his 'oeuvre' and it's silly pompadour affectations. It's a car. Nice, but so are a lot of cars. This is less art than a lot of Lotii, in my opinion.
@beercheck: Man, what you gotta do is chill out,man. Like, jive to the beat, man. Man, man. Like, man. Like, you just got to get hip. you know, man? Like, hip, cat, like a hip cat! Yeah man! Get hip! Awww man.
@voodoojoo: Like, whoa. I am now one of those who knows I should have gone with that mode of prose, brotherman.
@beercheck: I am now one of those who knows I should have chosen that mode of prose, brotherman.
(perfectionists should be shot)
For fun, I'll take the counterpoint: Burden may have been more concerned with demonstrating that when anyone builds a car, whether he considers himself involved in an important artistic process or not, he is involved in the process of making art.
His line about "bringing [the car] into existence" alludes to childbirth and the "elaborate fantasy" that process involves (for some). But you can't raise a car as you would a child, only care for it as you would a wrench or knife. Therefore, it makes sense that creating the car was more significant than driving it.
Personally, I welcome these thought processes. We can all take from this what we will and leave the rest, but who here hasn't done something that most would consider meaningless, looked at our work, admired it and found the actual function to be anti-climactic to the experience of creating it? Could we put any number of engineers in this category? It may not be expressed the same way, but I suspect the basic feeling is there. Thank you for this eye-opening post and I, for one, look forward to more. We should all be able to appreciate the effort, if not the outcome.
It looks like a Chris Craft and a Lotus 7 Had a child with an eating disorder.
@CafeRacer1200: If we all truly appreciated the effort, we'd all be driving VW Phaetons because of their trunk hinges.
You can be a greenie or you can be a hoon, but to suggest one can be both is pure sacrilege!
@boognish: Spot on.
Clearly, Chris Burden missed out on the Pinewood Derby.
Art is bullshit.
@lascauxcaveman:
Ahhh, but if done correctly, and with the proper marketing, it is very well paying bullshit. I speak as one who earned his living for decades by his art, some of which was actually automotive.
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