Artist Chris Burden’s 2008 installation of historic street lights at Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a great example of pleasing both critics and the public. The luminous display of restored light poles from the 1920s and 1930s not only forms an engaging public gateway into LACMA, the grid-like installation is hugely popular with visitors as they line up to photograph each other in and among the 202 lights.
Interactive design and art are hot topics these days, but interactivity need not come from the piece itself, but can emerge from people interacting and moving around otherwise static objects. Here, visitors can be seen all day and into the night posing for the camera ‘inside’ the sculpture.
The work also succeeds as a wayfinding element for the museum—with the piece featured on the LACMA website and promotional materials, you know when you’ve arrived and where to enter the sprawling complex.
Urban Light
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard
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