Chris Burden

Chris Burden’s Deluxe Photo Book 1971-1973 brings together a legendary chronicle in the form of a document binder, strictly composed of photographs and descriptive text where conceptual rigor contrasts with the extreme nature of the recounted experiences. Beginning with Shoot at the F-Space Gallery in 1971, where Burden was shot in the arm at close range, the binder - hand painted by the artist like a testamentary gesture - covers three years of performances. They inaugurated an activist artistic approach to play against societal upheavals by endangering the artist’s body. And this critical allegory of the martyrdom solution is particularly resonant in view of current events. From body sculpture to constructions inspired by the civil engineering from 1990s, Chris Burden’s art has maintained a critical subtlety illustrated by the stainless steel models such as Tower of London Bridge (2003), also presented on the Krinzinger gallery stand.