David Sanchez Burr
Big Bad Anthropocene Machine, 2019
Digital video, 18:00
On loan from the Artist
On view in the E. Craig Wall, Jr. Academic Center from October 4 – November 21st, 2020.
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About the Artist
Mr. Sanchez Burr is an artist currently teaching at Lake Forest College in Illinois. He does everything from site-specific installations to time based media or performance pieces. He has received grants and awards from The Nevada Arts Council, The Media Arts Project, ISEA, the Art Production Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. He earned his BFA in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA in studio art with a concentration in New Media from the University of Nevada. He has taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, University of Maryland, University College, and New Mexico Highlands University.
Q: “I was wondering how much of your process goes according to plan, how much you plan out ahead of time or if you make discoveries along the way?”
A: “If you ever listen to John Cage [. . .] there is an operation called Chance. And Chance is a thing that I always embed in my work. It’s the possibilities of anything occurring, including the audience. In some cases in my artwork, I’ve had moments when parts of my installations have been thrown across the room. There’s this activity that is the cacophony of which I speak. You can’t expect everyone to act a specific way. And everybody comes in with their own diverse experience. And my work accepts that. I’ve learned to accept this idea that any chance can occur, that I include chance in those variables. And, being that I also include my audience as part of their participation and co-authorship of the work, then that’s part of it. And that’s why I love doing what I do. It’s because I never know what’s going to happen. And I don’t know a lot of artists who can say that. And I feel like I’m in a good position, a good place, because I can be happier. I mean, sure enough, I get concerned about things getting thrown around. But, at the same time, I’m not the one to mediate that. My work is an impulse for people and they do, a lot of times, whatever they want with it.”
Incorporating his musical background into his current work, Sanchez Burr uses sound waves to rattle intricate miniature scenes. The miniature figures stand firm as the environment around them collapses. In the current political and economic climate, while we can do our best to control the world around us, we must learn to accept the times we are powerless to chance if we want to find peace in a rapidly changing world.
Digital video, 18:00
Artist’s Statement
“Influenced greatly by the seismic shift of migrating to the United States at an early age, my work is guided by the social, political, cultural, and economic dynamics that have evolved since the 1980s. To research the depths by which art can demonstrate the spectacle of our time has been a long term pursuit. Through site specific installations, time-based media and performance, I intentionally seek to create a complex blend of cacophony and harmonics to illustrate the times in which we live.” (From the artist’s website)