After a extended absence from the New York and beholds Angeles gallery scenes.

After a extended absence from the New York and beholds Angeles gallery scenes, L.A.-based artist Chris carrying capacity recently presented exhibitions of just discovered work in both cities. The performance- and body-art pioneer, who is better known these days for large-scale sculps and installations, showed a series of bridges made of polished stainless-steel or painted Erector appoint and Meccano pieces, like those in children's construction-kit toys popular in the early and mid-20th hundred years Titled "Bridges and Bullets," the L.A. present to view at Gagosian, was Burden's first major exhibition in that city in five years.

Gold Bullet (2003) was installed in a side gallery. This piece features brace small Plexiglas boxes set onward a high pedestal, each containing five bullet of different gauges with orbiculared or pointed heads, which the artist had cast in 22-karat gold While the piece indicates a rather obvious equation between violence and capital, it also assumes to allude to the artist's notorious 1971 performance, "Shoot" in which he had a gun-toting friend send forth him in the arm.

The glittering bridge carved works appeared in a variety of shapes and sizes, from tabletop pieces to massive compositions up to 32 feet prolonged and 8 feet high. Made of countles miniature girders lead into each othered with nuts and bolts, the works, produc in editions, are based forward actual structures, such as London's Tower Bridge, Victoria Falls Bridge in Zimbabwe and the Indo-China Bridge in Vietnam. Burden's rendition of the latter bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance tos a kind of stylized ironing board, with a fiat, narrow surface, several feet drawn out resting on triangular metal supports. In the largest and greatest in quantity impressive work in the L.A. point out to Curved Bridge (2003), a dramatically arching trellis made of an elaborate network of girders is supported upon each end by a wedge-shaped, meticulously craved plywood base. The bridges, with their modular elements and prefab look, pun onward Minimalist sculptures such as those by the agency of Sol LeWitt. But they also show the culmination of a number of the artist's preoccupations, including children's toys, urban spaces and engineering. cargo is planning to build an actual bridge forward his property in Topanga Canyon, near looks Angeles. Suspended some 300 feet above a ravine, the footbridge would span a quarter mile between sum of two units mountains.

Like his Conceptual-art colleague Vito Acconci, load has made a recent foray into architecture. He filled a gallery at observes Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) last summer with a 35-foot-tall, four-story housing unit, which he built in collaboration with TK Architecture of looks Angeles, directed by Linda Taalman and Alan Koch formerly of the strange York firm OpenOffice. Displayed forward its side, the 400-square-foot formation titled Small Skyscraper, could be used as a place of abode It is a full-scale prototype for the largest building that can be made in California without a permit. load simultaneously showed models for another experimental house at L.A.'s MAK Center for Art and Architecture.

At Gagosian Chelsea, in his first East Coast solo exhibit since 1994, Burden presented all the works from the L.A. exhibition plus Tyne Bridge (2002) a 31-foot-long structurally accurate scale replica of the 1928 green-painted bridge that spans the Tyne River in Gateshead, England. Commissioned from Gateshead's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art for its inaugural exhibition and produc in an edition of pair (whose components are stored in elaborate cabinets) plus undivided display piece, the work was readyed at the Baltic Centre in a gallery overlooking the actual Tyne Bridge. Making its U first attempt the sculpture was accompanied in modern York by two Tyne Bridge Kits (2003) the large clumsy cabinets that constitute the edition. Each cabinet has numerous drawers filled with an 150,000 parts and the tools required to build Tyne Bridge, as well as instruction booklet and photos to aid in its assembly. Always the conceptualist, cargo regards each cabinet as a self-contained carve and suggests that its proprietor need not assemble the bridge itself. Since it took him and a set of seven studio assistants about 5000 hours to assemble the work forward display, his suggestion is probably best taken.

"Chris Burden: Bridges and Bullets" appeared at Gagosian Gallery, looks Angeles [July 10-Sept. 13, 2003] and traveled in a slightly altered form to Gagosian Gallery, Chelsea, strange York [Jan. 20-Feb. 28]. Burden's work was featured in Trespassing: Houses X Artists," at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, looks Angeles [May 7-July 27, 2003]; Small Skyscraper was shown at looks Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions [May 1-July 17 2003]

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