This month, IMCA commemorates the 50th anniversary of Five Day Locker Piece by Chris Burden (1946 – 2015) presented by the artist between April 26 and April 30, 1971 in the university’s art studios as part of his MFA exhibition. The work involved Burden climbing into storage locker number 5, measuring 2’ x 2’ x 3’, and remaining there for five consecutive days. Like his other performative works, he methodically prepared in advance and rehearsed. He placed a five-gallon container of water in the locker above (to stay hydrated) and an empty container in the locker below (into which he emptied his bladder), accessing both through concealed tubes. The locker was secured with a pad lock, which serves as the relic of the work. The bank of lockers is currently in use at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts—enduring testaments of Burden’s early explorations of the body as genre and material and its relationship to audience.
Burden spoke about the iconic work in a lecture at the Rhode Island School of Design on November 12, 1974. “It was an experiment,” he said. “I wanted to see what would happen. I thought this piece was going to be an isolation thing, but it turned into this strange sort of public confessional where people were coming all the time to talk to me. At first, just my friends and the other grad students knew about it. Then it started building up, rumors were spreading. The university’s a pretty big place and people who weren’t interested in art, specifically, came over just to see this guy locked in a locker. I think that the further away you were from this, the stranger it seemed, and I noticed that when people actually came to talk with me, they were reassured in a way (artforum.com, May 1976).”
Sixteen years later, Ed Moses, the late critically acclaimed artist and UCI faculty member from 1969 to 1973 who knew Burden since his student days at UCI, reflected on his work. “Chris is inarguably the most powerful artist to come out of Los Angeles. Those early performances he did really peeled people’s brains. The question is, will Chris eventually be absorbed into the culture, or can he keep cracking the spine of the psyche? So far, he shows no signs of letting up, and that’s what’s so magnificent about him (latimes.com, November 29, 1992).”
Following Burden’s death in 2015, artist and arts writer Benjamin Lord lamented the loss. “The passing of Chris Burden brought to a close one of the most significant artistic careers in American art of the last half-century. Burden’s great theme was the precariousness of individual existence in the post-industrial age, and he pursued it across a field of limit-seeking undertakings that, to a previous generation, would have seemed implausible, if not impossible. Burden boldly opened and closed entire genres, sometimes within the course of a single work (X-tra Contemporary Art Quarterly, Spring 2016).”
Burden’s determination as an artist to push through what many would perceive as limitations—even impossibilities—and constantly experiment remains an inspiration.
During April, IMCA joins the Department of Art in celebrating his singular legacy with the UCI community and his many admirers in California and beyond. IMCA is grateful to the Chris Burden Estate and its executive director, Yayoi Shionoiri, for providing access to the archives to share these materials.
Burden spoke about the iconic work in a lecture at the Rhode Island School of Design on November 12, 1974. “It was an experiment,” he said. “I wanted to see what would happen. I thought this piece was going to be an isolation thing, but it turned into this strange sort of public confessional where people were coming all the time to talk to me. At first, just my friends and the other grad students knew about it. Then it started building up, rumors were spreading. The university’s a pretty big place and people who weren’t interested in art, specifically, came over just to see this guy locked in a locker. I think that the further away you were from this, the stranger it seemed, and I noticed that when people actually came to talk with me, they were reassured in a way (artforum.com, May 1976).”
Sixteen years later, Ed Moses, the late critically acclaimed artist and UCI faculty member from 1969 to 1973 who knew Burden since his student days at UCI, reflected on his work. “Chris is inarguably the most powerful artist to come out of Los Angeles. Those early performances he did really peeled people’s brains. The question is, will Chris eventually be absorbed into the culture, or can he keep cracking the spine of the psyche? So far, he shows no signs of letting up, and that’s what’s so magnificent about him (latimes.com, November 29, 1992).”
Following Burden’s death in 2015, artist and arts writer Benjamin Lord lamented the loss. “The passing of Chris Burden brought to a close one of the most significant artistic careers in American art of the last half-century. Burden’s great theme was the precariousness of individual existence in the post-industrial age, and he pursued it across a field of limit-seeking undertakings that, to a previous generation, would have seemed implausible, if not impossible. Burden boldly opened and closed entire genres, sometimes within the course of a single work (X-tra Contemporary Art Quarterly, Spring 2016).”
Burden’s determination as an artist to push through what many would perceive as limitations—even impossibilities—and constantly experiment remains an inspiration.
During April, IMCA joins the Department of Art in celebrating his singular legacy with the UCI community and his many admirers in California and beyond. IMCA is grateful to the Chris Burden Estate and its executive director, Yayoi Shionoiri, for providing access to the archives to share these materials.