Path to Xanadu
This is a 1 of 1 digital collectible from the 'Beyond Limits: Unrealized Artworks of Chris Burden' Collection.
Chris Burden's remarkable Xanadu, conceptualized as early as 2008, while ultimately unrealized, represents the pinnacle of his exploration into the recontextualization of everyday objects and the profound shifts in scale. It is an audacious vision of a cityscape where he distilled essential urban elements into an idealized environment, and serves as social, political, and artistic commentary.
Xanadu's central components include bridges, pedestrian pathways adorned with street lamps, skyscrapers, bunkers, and even a fountain. This conceptual city, meant to be uninhabited yet human-sized, exemplifies Burden's ongoing exploration of society - as an interconnected and reimagined space where the urban landscape and its inhabitants play a critical role.
Initially envisioned for LACMA, then considered for Larry Gagosian's Los Angeles home, and then proposed for the New Museum, Burden grappled with financial and logistical limitations that prevented its realization in the physical world.
Now, digitally brought to life based on the model created for LACMA, Xanadu stands as a testament to Burden's artistry and vision.
Visit https://chrisburden.trlab.com/ or https://trlab.com/ for more information.
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THE ORIGINALCONCEPT
In 2008, Chris Burden embarked on Xanadu, an ambitious concept for a human-scale cityscape that would be populated with his own sculptures.
Burden described the piece as “a metaphorical city condensed to the essentials.”
Though the artist never got to see Xanadu realized during his lifetime, it survives in maquette form at a much-reduced scale, together with archival materials of the many proposals about the work that was created by Burden in his lifetime, and is carefully preserved as part of the Estate archives.
Now, with the help of state-of-the-art technologies, the work many consider to be the artist’s “incomplete magnum opus” can be appreciated anew in digital form and shared with a broad global audience.