Jack Champion, Untitled. Photo by Jeff Song.
On View from March 30, 2018 to December 14, 2018
In 2016, Jack Champion brought his first solo artwork to the playa at Burning Man: a group of five resin crows collectively called Murder. Champion later cast this pair of sturdier, oversized bronze birds in the image of the originals.
Observing how the vastness of the desert landscape at Burning Man has a tendency to fool the eye, Champion began making the crows to play with perspective. The birds appear small from afar but then overwhelm viewers with their unexpected scale up close. Crows play a meaningful role in Champion’s life: his grandmother kept a pet crow when he was five, and later at Burning Man, an uncanny encounter with the creatures in the desert spurred the creation of this series. He still feeds the crows outside his house in Oakland.
No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man brings the large-scale, participatory work from this desert gathering to the nation’s capital for the first time. The exhibition takes over the entire Renwick Gallery building and surrounding Golden Triangle neighborhood, bringing alive the maker culture and creative spirit of this cultural movement.