Chris Burden was at the forefront of the conceptual art movement in the early 1970s. Prelude to 220, or 110 is one of his most important works where the artist puts his life on the line for his art. Burden voluntarily lays on his back. His neck and wists are have copper bands that bolt him to the floor. To his immediate left and right are two buckets of water with a 110-volt line inside. If the buckets were compromised in any way by a passerby or an unexpected event - Burden would have been electrocuted in a literal shocking performance.
Art history is replete with artists who put themselves in harm's way to accomplish their art. Michelangelo risked a misstep to a certain death as he elevated himself over 60 feet to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Francisco Goya's "The Disasters of War" may have put him at odds with a governing orthodoxy. Picasso walked a very narrow line with during the Nazi occupation. Gutzon Borglum dangled himself off the face of Mount Rushmore and War Photographer Robert Capa, landed on Omaha Beach during D-Day. But it was Chris Burden whose art spotlighted danger itself as the art object that makes him a true art revolutionary.
The work consists of two separate framed photographs. Gelatin silver print in two parts . Signed, dated and numbered to lower right of each panel '1/5 Chris Burden 71’ and ‘1/5 Chris Burden 71’. This work is number 1 from the edition of 5.
Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist c. 1975 by the present owner
literature: Chris Burden: A Twenty Year Survey, Ayres and Schimmel, pg. 50