The Meccano Bridges

Sunday I got out of bed the usual time, which in my case is somewhere after lunchtime. Despite a tiny hangover, I thought It would be a good idea to spend this sunny Sunday outside. So I went to an art exhibition of performance artist Chris Burden.

I already talked about Chris Burden in an earlier post. He's a performance artist. His art-works involves experiences, such as being shot in the arm, lying in a bed in a museum for days in a row or standing on a ladder while below him there's water with a 220 volt cable in it.

His recent performances are a bit less dangerous. In Antwerp he used a crane to drop huge beams of iron in cement, which lead to a spontaneous, chaotic sculpture. You can still see the result of this in the park at the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp. And of course, in the upper picture.

He also made a huge racetrack with toy cars on it. And bridges made of meccano. It's like fulfilling a childhood dream, but getting paid for it. These bridges actually didn't sound very interesting to me at first. But if you're there, and if you can see the sculptures, touch the sculptures, it's actually really interesting. There was also a video that showed the building of a 12 metre tall skyscraper made of meccano, so if the bridges weren't already impressive enough, this certainly was.

Looking at these artworks, video's and all the other sculptures in the park made me realize that I've been spending too much time getting inspiration from the internet. If you see something for real, you can actually feel the work that an artist put in it. You can experience it. And that is what art really is about, rather than just looking at some pictures on the internet.

Today I had a day off. It was a compensation for the shooting I had on a day that was supposed to be a day off. I kind of needed a little break, especially after such a busy week. For a change, I did absolutely nothing and it was great. Sometimes experiencing something new can be really simple.