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The atomic alphabeth (1982)

Christian Burden

Christian Burden

Ti­tle of the com­pi­la­ti­on: Revolutions Per Minute
(The Art Record)
Ti­tle: Christian Burden: The Atomic Alphabeth (Track 11)
Publisher: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
Da­te: 1982
Me­di­um: record 30 cm
Edition: special edition: 500, with lithographs n. & s.;
regular edition: + poster
Cover: Juanita Gordon

 

Chris Burden wrote the piece The Atomic Alphabeth as a reaction to the Vietnam War and the Cold War. In addition to the performance heard here, he has also published this work as a print.

Burden performed the work dressed entirely in leather, reciting the letters of the alphabet in a powerful, aggressive voice, each accompanied by a war vocabulary beginning with the corresponding initial letter.

On the paper version of the work, he added the Chinese spelling of the word and a corresponding pictogram to each letter-word pair. The arrangement is based on the style of the learning boards, with which children are taught the individual letters with the help of associations. 

PS