For the first time in 25 years, performance, sculpture, and installation artist Chris Burden is presenting a collection of his work, entitled Extreme Measures, in the United States. As part of the exhibition at the New Museum in New York, Burden installed All the Submarines of the United States of America, filling a room with 625 hand-painted cardboard submarines that are suspended from the ceiling at varying lengths.
The meticulous arrangement of ships hang down from a thin wire which produces an illusion that they are floating through the air. The individual submarines hang like a school of fish overhead, swimming through an imaginary sea. The identical sculptures symbolize the many US Navy ships that were built from 1890 through 1987 (the date the project was first created).
According to the New Museum review, Extreme Measures “offers an extraordinary opportunity to examine the ways in which Burden has continuously investigated the breaking point of materials, institutions, and even himself.” Burden’s work will be exhibited through January 12, 2014.
