This is Chris Burden’s “Urban Light” sculpture (2000-2007) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. According to LACMA’s press release, this permanent installation “incorporates 202 antique cast-iron lampposts from various cities in and around the Los Angeles area. In the 1920s, each city designed its own streetlamps as a form of public art and civic identity. Over the past seven years, Burden recovered and restored many of these vintage one-and-a-half ton lampposts. When they arrived at the artist’s compound in Topanga Canyon in pieces, they were sandblasted and missing parts, including the hand-blown glass lanterns and globes, were fabricated or salvaged from other lamps. They were then painted a medium grey and electrified. The artist painstakingly catalogued each streetlamp by individual type according to the year of its manufacture, its original location, its height, and the number of lamps it contains. Gathered into a whole, the artist describes the streetlamps as ‘a statement about what constitutes a civilized and sophisticated society: safe after dark and beautiful to behold.’”
We drove by this installation this past weekend…after dark when it was all lit up. I like the simple repitition and it really was quite magical to see. (Above photo from LACMA’s website and detail photos below were taken by me with my iPhone)
Tags: chris burden, lacma, los angeles county museum of art, public art, streetlamps, urban light