"City Of Dust: The Evolution Of Burning Man"

Story Of How An Experimental Desert City Came To Be And How It Continues To Evolve Today

July 21, 2017

The remarkable story of how a legendary Nevada gathering evolved through collaborative ritual from humble countercultural roots on San Francisco’s Baker Beach into the world-famous desert convergence it is today comes together in the exhibit, “City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man.” Never-before-seen photographs, artifacts, journals, sketches, and notebooks reveal how this temporary experimental desert city came to be, and how it continues to evolve. Organized by the Nevada Museum of Art, many items included are drawn from the archive collections of the Museum’s Center for Art + Environment. “City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man” will be on view through Jan. 7, 2018, at the Nevada Museum of Art, Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts, E. L. Wiegand Gallery, located in downtown Reno, Nev. In the spring of 2018, the show will travel to the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
Borrowing methods from anthropology and archaeology, “City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man” relies on primary source materials, such as archives, artifacts, journals, sketches and notebooks. These historical items trace the civic growth and development of Burning Man's temporary city that arises annually in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The exhibition also acknowledges Burning Man's global impact and touches on what the future may hold for the recently-established Burning Man Project.
“City of Dust” spans three consecutive galleries at the Nevada Museum of Art, each focusing on a specific era in the convergence’s growth and change. Themes include “Countercultural Roots in the San Francisco Bay Area,” “Spontaneous Order in the Desert,” “Art on the Playa and Beyond,” “Burning Man’s Global Reach,” and “Burning Man into the Future.” While some of the materials on view are on loan from private collections, most are drawn from the Archive Collections of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art. Home to the largest publicly-held collection of Burning Man archives anywhere, researchers travel from around the world to study these materials while seeking to better understand Burning Man's legacy.
“This exhibition only begins to unravel the story of Burning Man. Through ‘City of Dust,’ the Nevada Museum of Art hopes not only to shine a light on this vibrant, participatory community, but also to illustrate how its radically experimental nature connects to the desert, and to the region of the Greater West,” stated Ann M. Wolfe, Andrea and John C. Deane family senior curator and deputy director at the Nevada Museum of Art.
"This partnership with the Nevada Museum of Art is an exciting step toward the storytelling about the growth of Burning Man. We’re excited to share pieces from our history and stories from our year-round culture with the Reno community,” said Michael Mikel, Burning Man co-founder.
To learn more, visit www.nevadaart.org.


 

More Articles