I've driven by the permanent lightpost installation outside of LACMA on Wilshire plenty of times and never really knew what it was about. Mystery Solved! I finally went to see the Vanity Fair portraits exhibit, and found out a bit more about the lights outside. 202 antique cast-iron street lights from various cities in and around the Los Angeles area. The street lights are functional, turn on in the evening (I recommend seeing them lit), and are powered by solar panels on the roof of the BP Grand Entrance.The artist's name is Chris Burden. Burden's reputation as a performance artist started to grow in the early 1970s after he made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central. His most well-known act from that time is perhaps the 1971 performance piece Shoot, in which he was shot in his left arm by an assistant from a distance of about five meters. Burden was taken to a psychiatrist after this piece.
Another of Burden’s most famous, Trans-Fixed took place in 1974 at Speedway Avenue in Venice, California. For this performance, Burden lay face up on a Volkswagen Beetle and had nails hammered into both of his hands, as if he was being crucified on the car. The car was pushed out of the garage and the engine revved for two minutes before being pushed back into the garage.
Ummmm...OK.
I think I understand the lightposts more.
What I
really wanted to photograph was the exhibit inside. Well...not so much the exhibits I guess but the people looking at them. Unfortunately there's a no camera rule and being the pansy ass that I am, everytime I thought it was prime opportunity to take a good shot of an unsuspecting soul I chickened out. I took one picture. And here it is...my evidence of law breakage....
Since I didn't get any bootleg shots inside, I looked online and found some of my favorites from the collection to show you.
