Burning Man is getting a major national showcase — a gallery exhibition at the Smithsonian
Burning Man hasn’t always been taken seriously by the tastemakers of high art. Now, 32 years after its founding, the hedonistic art party in the Nevada desert is getting its biggest national showcase thanks to the Smithsonian.
“No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” opens on Friday at the Renwick Gallery building, part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and will include both new works and selections from the festival itself.
The exhibit includes photography, light installations, jewelry, art cars, a giant bear made of pennies, and other large-scale sculptures, six of which will be spread throughout the surrounding neighborhood.
Stephanie Stebich, the Renwick’s director, visited the 2017 Burning Man festival. She said she was moved by its communal ethos, exhibited by the common greeting: “Welcome home.”
“I believe it’s a utopian community,” Stebich said, “in the spirit of, how do we bring out the best in people? How do we invite everybody to share their gifts and their talents?”
Burning Man is a California invention. It was born in 1986 on San Francisco’s Baker Beach, where a small group of friends gathered on a lark to burn a 10-foot stick figure in honor of summer solstice.
It became a yearly event, and in 1990 moved to a remote outpost in the Black Rock Desert, where it grew into a movement organized around principles such as “radical expression,” “participation,” and “leaving no trace.”
More than 70,000 people gather each August on a 7-square-mile patch of ancient lake bed that is transformed into a bacchanal of art installations, dreamlike costumes, and all-night dance parties, culminating with the burning of a towering wooden effigy.
How much of that experience can survive transplantation to a gallery steps from the White House is unclear. Stebich said she hoped “No Spectators” would offer at least a glimpse of what all the hubbub is about. “In part that’s why the exhibition is so important,” she said. “To try to explain what makes Burning Man so special.”
“No Spectators” runs through January 2019.
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