Gallery Paper

Caitlin Pupich

DM 350 Gallery Paper

Gallery Paper: All the Submarines of the United States by Chris Burden

I looked at the work of Chris Burden in his piece titled All the Submarines of the United States of America. This piece was meant to look at the power of the United States that many of us are not even aware of. While  most of us are taught in school that the United States has one of the largest militaries in the world, the scale of what that actually means is often misunderstood or unnoticed. This work creates a physical representation of that by forming identical cardboard replicas for every submarine that the United States had from the late 1980’s, since the work was created in 1987, and suspending them from the ceiling so that they float similarly to a real submarine .  This ends up creating a cloud of 625 submarines.  Furthermore, the name of each United States submarine can be found in a list on the wall next to the submarines.

This is an interesting display of the military might of the United States for two main reasons. First is the focus of the piece: submarines. While most are aware that these exist as a defensive mechanism for many larger countries, they are less often thought of as a very powerful force. Therefore, when you are presented with this physical, large-scale piece of work that only includes the hidden might of the submarines, it creates an entirely new way to understand our own military.

The second element that really makes this piece effective is the physical spacing and the scale at which this piece is built.  The spread-out work forces you to walk around the piece in order to gain a full perspective of the submarines. In turn, this requires to physically feel and experience just how large the United States submarine force is, and this is still the most forgotten element of our armed forces.  Together, the element of surprise that comes with focusing on submarines as well as the large scale of the work creates an effective piece that forces a new understanding of our own military force.