Samson, notes on destroying a gallery

The centerpiece of the exhibition is one of Burden’s most important post-performance sculptures, the gallery-destroying apparatus Samson from 1985.

The artist describes Samson as simply “a museum installation consisting of a 100 ton jack connected to a gear box and a turnstile. The 100 ton jack pushes two large timbers against the bearing walls of the museum. Each visitor to the exhibition must pass through the turnstile in order to see the exhibition. Each input on the turnstile ever so slightly expands the jack, and ultimately, if enough people visit the exhibition, Samson could theoretically destroy the building. Like a glacier its powerful movement is imperceptible to the naked eye. This sculptural installation subverts the notion of the sanctity of the museum (the shed that houses art).”

In forcing the spectator to pass through the turnstile, Burden assigns them equal culpability in the destruction of the gallery space. The art lover becomes complicit in the destruction of the “temple” that holds the precious objects. This sinister joke, however, is actually embedded in a larger, multi-layered dialogue Burden has been engaged in from the very first performance, namely questioning the necessity of the art object and the role of the artist and the art viewer in contemporary society. The fact that Samson is clearly informed with the minimalist aesthetic that preoccupied Burden’s sculptural work as a student in the late 1960s, is not lost on the historian, nor is the preciousness of the velvet-lined vitrines that encase the relics. As fleeting as the performances were, the objects and documentation Burden gathered, organized and made available to us are thoughtfully preserved.