QUIKRETE® finds artistic flair in new museum exhibit

Words: Chris BurdenThe QUIKRETE® Companies found an unexpected place in the New Museum’s presentation of “Chris Burden: Extreme Measures,” the renown artist’s first New York survey and his first major U.S. exhibition in more than twenty-five years. The exhibition, which is on view from Oct. 2, 2013 to Jan. 12, 2014, presents a selection of Burden’s work across various medium spanning his forty-year career including Beehive Bunker and A Tale of Two Cities featuring QUIKRETE® products.

Over the past four decades, Burden has created a unique and powerful body of work that has redefined the way we understand both performance and sculpture. The exhibition at the New Museum features a selection of Burden’s work focused on marvels of engineering, such as buildings, vehicles, war machines, and bridges, consistently engaging with the representation of masculinity and the destructive potential latent in engineering pursuits. With that in mind, the use of QUIKRETE® materials for the Beehive Bunker and A Tale of Two Cities exhibits made perfect sense.

Beehive Bunker, 2006

Beehive Bunker is a low cost defensive structure to be occupied by one to three persons. This monumental dwelling reconfigures more than 300 bags of QUIKRETE® Concrete Mix and more than 300 of QUIKRETE® Fast-Setting Concrete Mix in a stacked pattern to create an imposing environment that treat the landscape of the city as a place of constant threat to the individual body. The bags of concrete were watered in the gallery, so it hardened during installation process.

A Tale of Two Cities, 1981

War toys to model a hypothetical conflict between two warring city-states. The installation amplifies the mock staging of violence typical of male childhood play in order to make contemporary warfare. Installation of the two miniature cities covering about 1,000 square feet required 1,040 bags of QUIKRETE® All-Purpose Sand covered by approximately 5,000 toys, plants and boulders.

For more information on the “Chris Burden: Extreme Measures” presentation at the New Museum, please visit www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/chris-burden-extreme-measures. The New Museum, which is located at 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002, is open from 11 a.m. — 6 p.m. EST on Wed. and Fri. through Sun., and from 11 a.m. — 9 p.m. EST on Thurs.
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