Preface, Art on Fire: Burning Man by Jennifer Raiser

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14 BURNING MAN

Founder Larry Harvey wrote the Ten Principles as a reflection of the communitys ethos and culture as it had organically developed.

Radical inclusionAnyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

GiftinGBurning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

decommodificationIn order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Radical self-RelianceBurning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

Radical self-expRessionRadical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

communal effoRtOur community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

civic ResponsibilityWe value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

leavinG no tRaceOur community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

paRticipationOur community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

immediacyImmediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience

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Art on fire: seven days ablaze

W hat motivates a builder to spend six months designing and constructing an elaborate five story wooden temple in the middle of a barren desert only to deliberately burn it down a week after it is completed?

What drives a disparate collection of doctors, baristas, musicians, schoolteachers, and plumbers to spend sweltering summer nights building a giant tree stump in a run-down warehouse welding shop, and then use up their vacation to weld it from sundown to sunup?

Burning Man. This is the worlds largest outdoor art show. A seven day

adventure of self-expression and self-reliance, where creativity replaces money as the currency of significance. An impromptu tent city of 70,000 strangers who agree to foster inclusion, participation, and enthusiastic expression as one tribe. For one short week, a desolate prehistoric lakebed becomes one of the largest cities in Nevada and then vanishes. This phantasm, this folly, this force field, this vortex, becomes at once a glorious accident, a bacchanal, a biennale, a destination and a phenomenon.

In Black Rock City, the practice of art unleashes individual creativity, gathers collective endeavor, and galvanizes a community. It temporarily dominates a landscape that offers equal measures of exquisite beauty and punishing brutality. It defies an economic art market that equates price with quality, and narrowly identifies the artist as an isolated individual. It repudiates the notion that art should be curated, protected, and observed at a distance. This art is valued according to the perception of each observer, not by a critic, gallerist, or collector.

The creators come from all corners, all backgrounds and influences. They are unified by a set of values, by the harsh physical realities of the desert, and by the invitation to express.

Some have formal training; many do not. Some make a living creating ideas or objects, most spend their days as line cooks, therapists, welders, civil servants, nannies, paramedics. Some present their work as individuals, others as collectives. Some work on a monumental scale, others in miniature. Some construct their art to last years, others build and then deliberately set their pieces ablaze as a form of completion.

The caliber of art at Burning Man is widely varied; quality often defers to expression. The imperative here is to mark a moment in this punishing, exquisite, evanescent gathering. It is not an easy place to exhibit. The location is remote and the resources are few. The resulting art can be beautiful, astonishing, brutal, or absurd. Much is nave and derivative. All of it is there to manifest the artists vision.

Regardless, art in Black Rock City shares certain characteristics. It is voluntary, unencumbered by the hurdle of critic or jury. It is participatory. It is above commerce, and cannot be bought or sold in this place. Much of the art is formed by collaboration. Art galvanizes a community to share resources and provoke ideas. The best of it dazzles with sheer audacity.

Outdoors in the high desert, art must be able to withstand a week of baking sun, freezing cold, dust, wind, rain, even lightning, and intense interaction with participants who are invited to leap the velvet rope and experience it with all of their senses. The combination of engagement and punishing conditions demands a certain accessibility and heft, although the piece only needs to last a short time. This is the opposite of museum art, which can be fragile but should remain intact for years. Burning Man art uses its temporal urgency to invite participation. Explore it now, or it will be gone. Touch it. Photograph it. Appreciate it. Dont miss it.

Art cannot be bought or sold at Burning Man. This is powerful purity. The work does not succeed or fail by the opinion

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of curator or critic, but by the individual response of each participant, whose opinion is just as valid. Freed from constraints, offered unlimited scale and brief tenure, artists are challenged to do their most meaningful work, not their most marketable. They cannot gauge their ability by the hammer price, or which dealer has agreed to represent them, or economically driven forms of hierarchy and success.

The vast desert playa offers an unlimited size canvas which encourages escalation of dimension. Across the playa, a ten-story building looks like it was made from Lego blocks. Marco Cochrane, who produces dramatic 60-foot-tall sculptures says, You have no idea of the scale. It changes the way you think about everything.

The availability of enthusiastic volunteers also provides significant incentive to expand. Zoetrope artist Peter Hudson marvels, Youve got people falling all over you trying to give you their best effort and all kinds of time, just to be a part of something great. Most artists could only dream of this kind of resource, but here its normal. Fire artist Charlie Gadeken says, All you need is a good idea. They dont care who you are, if you have a portfolio or an art degree.

Artists can also consider the role of fire in their design. Amsterdam artist Dadara says, Its so tempting to think of things to burn up! Even if you end up fabricating out of steel or deciding not to burn it, you have to make that a conscious choice. And that key decision changes how you think about the art. Dave X, who handles fire safety for the Art Department, adds, If you want to burn it as part of what you are trying to say, well help you learn how to do that. But there has to be a clear artistic reason to burn, not just because you like bonfires.

The span of the event is also compelling. Kate Raudenbush says, One of the most beautiful things about Burning Man is its ephemeral nature. Everyone lives with an acute awareness that the entire city must disappear in one week. And that is what makes so many of our interactions so precious and so fraught, so intense and so appreciated, and ultimately it is what makes it so freeing and so life-changing. We bring this existence into being, and we also destroy it at the end.

A view of the Promenade to the Man in 2013.

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influenceR and influencedBurning Man art weaves threads from many traditions. Many of its inspirations are postmodern, or metamodern, altermodern, or even post-apocalyptic.

Founder Larry Harvey is clear that art holds the shared ethos of Black Rock City together. In a world where people gather at shopping malls while they ignore city hall, and the public square is disappearing, anything that can take values and interject them into the realm of civics is terribly needed; by putting art at the center of our city, we are doing that. We are saying that art influences and elevates our civic enterprise into meaning.

He believes that keeping this art outside the realm of commerce is crucial. Look at how artists are rewarded these days. There used to be an artisanal culture more widely spread, where artful things were far more common in the lives of ordinary people. Now art is available to very few, in a star system held in place by galleries and art dealers who stand to profit from its sale. We have disintermediated the gatekeepers by taking the profit motive away. So our whole line of thinking is radical. It is not deliberately subversive in its intention, but it is subversive in how it affects these art institutions. We say everybody is an artist, and art is free. Thats a radical move.

He continues to believe that upending the established artistic economic structure is part of its significance. Ironically, we have economic influence, in that we make careers possible for artists. We started featuring interactive art, and the other festivals came and discovered how much enthusiasm it generated, so they pay artists bring our art to their festivals. We dont make money on that, but it does disseminate our culture, which is powerful. We want the artist to be as compensated as possible.

There is always a place for a piece of art that is simply beautiful, made as an object for contemplation. But we tend to favor art that is more than that, and in some ways has a social

agenda. Harvey believes the values of Burning Man directly influence its creation. This art requires a shared culture for its production, exhibition, and indeed for its funding. We only provide grants for a portion of the piece, the artist has to find support for the rest. Look at crowdsourcing, the way our artists raise money to finish their pieces through the Internet and fundraisers. Thats galvanizing.

movement oR moment?Does that indicate a school or movement of Burning Man art? That notion provokes strong reactions. Charles Gadeken dismisses it as Just art critic stuff. At its best, Burning Man art makes you go, WOW. Thats true of ALL good art.

Elizabeth Scarborough, who directs Burning Mans art program disagrees.This meets the definition of an art movement: it exists at a particular point in time, and is a catalyst which helps redefine how art is made. It is the nexus point of art, philosophy and community. She continues, We see everybody as an artist without the need for credentials or even training. At the beginning, much of the art of Burning Man was not world class, but that wasnt the focus. It was a place for artistic experimentation, without feeing classified or judged. That attracted more artists and turned more people into artists; the things they make have become more sophisticated. Burning Man has helped to start a lot of artists careers. She believes the space plays an enormous role. In museums, there is a defined separation between art and the viewer, physically, mentally, emotionally. Here there is no wall around it, we want you to get in there and experience it. Only through that interaction is the piece fully realized.

Ian Baker of the Syzygryd crew believes Burning Man art is distinguished by its collective formation. It is possible for a work of art to be created by a group. In music, its like a band. Hey, Jude is by The Beatles, not by Paul McCartney. That group is a valid and reasonable creative entity. He adds, When I see a single artists name of the piece, a lot of time that is fiction. It is very important that all of the people involved get credit and recognition, along with the privilege of getting to work on the thing. Few of us are trying to support ourselves by doing the work we are doing together, so having our name on it has less economic importance. How does he know the thing they collectively make is art? I have a very permissive definition: Is it expensive and time consuming? Yes, and yes.

Baker continues, The whole point of Burning Man is radical self-expression. Your kids drawing on the refrigerator and the Mona Lisa in a museum are both art from the point of view of the artist. From the beholder thats up to you to decide. Do you want some stuffy critic to tell you what is real art?

What is art, what is craft, what is performance, what is decoration, what is derivative and what is original? Are photographs of art considered art? Are dances atop a

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than

in a year of conversation. Plato

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