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Chris Burden: Beam Drop Inhotim

Chris Burden: Beam Drop Inhotim
Publication Date 2008
Description “Beam Drop Inhotim” is the recreation of an original work that artist Chris Burden displayed at Art Park (New York) in 1985 and that was destroyed three years later. For twelve hours a crane dropped 71 junkyard beams from an height of 45 meters onto a fresh cement pit. The random fall of the beams echoes abstract expressionism gestural acts as Jackson Pollocks’ paintings and is equally the result of both the control of the artist and the chance. The violence inherent in the beam’s falling recalls past extreme works of the seminal artist, namely: “Shoot”, a 1971 performance in which he asked a friend to shoot him in the arm inside a gallery, or the “anti-architecture” work Samson (1985), (read “Art against architecture: Chris Burden 1985′s Samson“, on Socks), a sculpture meant to millimetrically destroy the gallery it was installed in, each time a visitor entered. In the case of “Beam Drop”, the beams are like the artist’s body falling and crashing against Earth.
Quantity 1
Format DVD
Publisher INHOTIM-Instituto de Arte Contemporanea, Brasil
Related Artist Chris Burden
Category Live Art/Performance
Keyword Documentation

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