“Chris Burden: The Master Builder” is coming to Brandeis. Burden is an installation and performance artist, who will come to campus to build an installation piece for Brandeis’ own Rose Art Museum.
The piece is called “Light of Reason,” and it will stand on the lawn in front of The Rose Art Museum. 24 restored Victorian-style street lamps will be projected out in three lines, imitating rays of light coming from a single point. According to The Rose’s website, the work is inspired by “the three torches, three hills and three Hebrew letters in the Brandeis University seal.”
The name of the piece also holds a special significance relevant to Brandeis. Justice Brandeis once said, “If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.”
While a date for the commencement of the installation has yet to be released, students will be able to experience a taste of Burden’s work at the opening of The Rose’s main spring exhibitions. “Chris Burden: The Master Builder” will be featured in the Upper Gerald S. and Sandra Fineberg Gallery from Feb. 14 to Jun. 8.
The collection is comprised of Burden’s model bridges, modeled for “bridges imagined and actual,” said The Rose’s website. “Burden’s erector sculptures extend the artist’s work as a social engineer, demonstrating his dual commitment to empiric and symbolic inquiry.”
Ellen de Graffenreid, senior vice president for communications, told The Hoot in an earlier article that she expects that “Light of Reason” will not only bring more visitors from the Waltham community to The Rose, but also from within the Brandeis campus.
“It could become a campus symbol in the way that the Castle or the Louis Brandeis statue are now,” she said. “There have been discussions about performances, community art events, meditation groups and other activities. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the Brandeis community.”
“Chris Burden: The Master Builder” will open at the same time as the other main exhibitions featured at The Rose this spring. In the Lois Foster Gallery, “Mika Rottenberg: Bowls Balls Souls Holes” will be presented. Rottenberg is a video installation artist, and her exhibit will demonstrate much of the growth that she has gone through over the course of her career. The other spring exhibitions are “The Matter that Surrounds Us: Wols and Charline Von Heyl” and two Rose Videos, “Mark Boulos and Josephine Meckseper” and “Maria Lassnig and Mary Reid Kelley.”
On Feb. 13 from 5 to 8 p.m., The Rose Art Museum will celebrate the opening of its spring exhibitions.
