Chris Burden: B-Car

Chris Burden: B-Car (1977) at UbuWeb Historical. "...Chris Burden is a singular figure in contemporary art. He works in a conceptualist mode as a sculptor, draftsman and performance artist, but his work is so dada-inflected, so informed by stunts, car culture, and science projects, and so frequently involves dangerous physical ordeals, as to belie such dry categorization. He created this book to document one of his most characteristic works, a project that he explains on the introductory page: During the two month period between August 24 and October 16, 1975, I conceived, designed, and constructed a small one passenger automobile. My goal was to design a fully operational four-wheel vehicle which would travel 100 miles per hour and achieve 100 miles per gallon. I imagined this vehicle as extremely lightweight, streamlined, and similar in structure to both a bicycle and an airplane. Once the project was conceived, I was compelled to realize it."