A report from intern Amanda Willis:
Chris Burden’s 65-foot-high artwork is hard to miss in Rockefeller Center. The stainless steel of the skyscraper reflects brightly against the adjacent buildings while its intricate criss-cross design is set atop a 3-foot concrete plinth. Burden’s creation, entitled “What My Dad Gave Me,” is a distinctive addition to the New York art scene because it’s made entirely of toy Erector type I parts circa 1913.
I was able to take a break from our comfortable air-conditioned office and take the 6-block stroll to Rockefeller Center through New York’s muggy heat wave last Wednesday. Situated on the edge of Fifth Avenue, the structure is diagonal from St. Patrick’s cathedral and is the height of a full-scale building.
As two security guards loiter around its sides, I have to painfully tilt my head back as far as possible just to catch a blinding glimpse of the skyscraper’s peak. It’s so far from the concrete that its top seems to caress the one pallid cloud in an otherwise clear sky.
“It reminds me of when my brother played with those erector sets when he was a kid,” says spectator Anna Marie Bartling as she takes a picture with a phone to send to her brother. The Delaware native read about Burden’s creation in her local newspaper that same morning and decided to make it a stop on her sightseeing route.
As I jot down some notes, more observers trickle by, holding their cameras above their heads to encompass its entirety into one shot. Some stop to marvel at its design while others find relief from the heat in its shade.
Up close, its construction is as complex as the motherboard of a Mac modem. I feel silly saying that because the entire thing is made of the same toy that sat in a box on my grandmother’s shelf years ago. But Burden uses approximately one million Erector set parts to showcase its versatility and strength as a dedication to New York’s historic skyscrapers.
Drawing inspiration from his fascination of engineering, Burden has built several other structures using Erector set and Meccano toy construction parts. He tells New York Times reporter Randy Kennedy that he became serious about this obsession when he began thinking about the nature of toys and children’s educational tools.
The exhibition is presented by the Public Art Fund and is part of Rockefeller Center’s program of monumental outdoor exhibitions. The gleaming structure took about a year to assemble in Los Angeles and will call Rockefeller Center home until July 19.
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