Merry Christmas from Chris Burden

 

"When you consider the range and number of these social transformations, it seems only natural that yet another persona would take its place on Burden’s list of selves—that of a plutocrat spreading the wealth. This is the form taken by Merry Christmas from Chris Burden, 1976, which traded anonymity for an assertive personhood and made an erstwhile misanthrope into a budding Maecenas. The transformation happened when the artist simply tucked a bank-crisp ten-dollar bill into each of one hundred envelopes printed specially for the occasion, complete with his return address. A separate insert offered Christmas greetings to the hundred artist-recipients of Burden’s largesse. Thirty-five years ago, was this a big gesture or a small one? The answer, like so much in economic relations, depends on where you stand, your place in the economic landscape and how it shapes your point of view. And it also depends on the perceptions of those around you. Like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, money talks only when someone hears what it says. It is easy to imagine Burden’s offering being quite carefully parsed by its beneficiaries, though whether gratefully or skeptically is harder to decide."

- Anne M. Wagner, Artforum, 2011

"The season's cheeriest Christmas card was undoubtedly that sent by Chris Burden, the West Coast conceptualperformance artist, to 100 selected art worldlings, ranging from Vito Acconci to Diana Slotnick. Its dignified message, in script print on an elegant white folded card, read “Merry Christmas from Chris Burden.” Inside was a crisp new $10 bill.

“Of course it's an art piece,” said Mr. Burden from his home in Venice, Calif. “It's just a funny way of treating money, like a joke on the old Christmas thing where your grandmother sends you cash. To me, the money was simply raw material, like wood, metal or anything else an artist uses.”

Mr. Burden says he sent half of the $10's to friends and half to people he'd done business with. “I took note of the serial numbers,” he said, “and I'll include it in my list of pieces.” This one is relatively sedate. Mr. Burden's other “art pieces” include having a friend shoot him in the ann with a 22 rifle, staying in a locker for five days and firing match rockets at his wife.

The artist says the greenback idea has not produced a lot of feedback, although “some people did some funny things. About four or five sent the money back—they were mostly businesspeople with guilt about accepting it. One artist, Ilene Segalove, made it into a bowtie and returned it. Some people I sent it to owed me money or had given me a rough time in business dealings; they seemed to think it was a put‐down. On the other hand, a few just went out and spent it right away.”"

- The New York Times, 1976