Chris Burden's Police Uniforms with Disabled Guns Shown at Art Basel

At Art Basel in Switzerland, ten works by Chris Burden are on view featuring oversized Los Angeles Police Department uniforms paired with disabled Beretta handguns. The artist, who died in 2015 at 69, began developing the pieces around the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. Due to Switzerland's strict firearm laws, Gagosian Gallery created silicone rubber replicas of the guns in collaboration with Burden's estate, approved by authorities and Art Basel's security. Eight of the ten uniforms are for sale as a set in the Unlimited section, which opened Monday to invited guests; the gallery declined to disclose the price. Burden's earlier works involved legal issues, including a 1971 performance where a friend shot him and a 1972 arrest for lying under a tarp on a Los Angeles street. Mary Anne Friel, who assisted Burden during his early 1990s residency at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, noted the tension in transporting and exhibiting the pieces, recalling customs delays en route to Milan and a gun theft in Vienna.