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No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man
Each August in Nevada's inhospitable Black Rock Desert, a thriving metropolis rises from the dust for a single week. During that time, many societal norms are put on hold as a civic structure emerges based on personal accountability, radical self-expression, collaboration, and a gift economy. Lights and music fill the empty desert. Multi-story buildings and massive, interactive art installations are erected; some are burned to the ground. Then at the end of the week, the city disappears like a mirage.
Burning Man has always been difficult to characterize. Variously called an arts festival, a bacchanal, and a utopian experiment, it exists outside the boundaries of everyday life, where immediacy and serendipity reign. Its organizers describe it as "a city in the desert, a culture of possibility, a network of doers and dreamers." Now, just over thirty years since it originated as a small bonfire on San Francisco's Baker Beach, it draws 70,000 participants annually, rivaling the largest art fairs worldwide, and has evolved beyond its temporal limits into the largest year-round "intentional community" in the world.
Though artistic expression has always been a part of the Burning Man experience, the past decade has seen the artwork grow in scale and complexity and draw global attention for its imagination and ingenuity. More significantly, though, the work of Burning Man resembles that of past artistic movements -- from dada to land art -- the unique environment of this event, the ethos behind it, and its link to contemporary maker culture and industry, make it wholly unique. Today, Burning Man is a hotbed of experimentation, a creative laboratory attended by many of the world's most innovative minds, where ideas are inspired and tested, free from the confines of the market.
For the first time in our nation's capital, No Spectators presents a comprehensive display of the stunning, participatory work that has emerged from this annual gathering by many of the artists and collectives who have become synonymous with the event, celebrating its importance to the American story as one of the most influential cultural events of our time. |