Irony blooms in the desert

Kristen Peterson | Photos by Tiffany Brown, Las Vegas Sun

Monday, Sept. 3, 2007 | 12:55 p.m.

If trees are truly a metaphor for life, growth, endurance and stability, then we're screwed. The reality and humor are not lost here at Burning Man, where artists play off the green theme.

Trees constructed from steel, found wood and recycled products dot the bleak, barren lake bed. Their lifeless bodies, sparsely planted, create the effect of a global-warming holocaust. Dust storms are ominous. Water is rationed. Lush doesn't exist.

"Crude Awakening," a multi-artist structure on the playa, features 7-ton steel human sculptures revering a 70-foot oil derrick.

The "Big Rig Jig" juts skyward. Made from two oil tankers fused together, it serves as metaphor of the oil industry being thrust into the air. Burners celebrate the piece. Are we saying that we've had it with oil?

Not completely. Burners in RVs, SUVs and cars traveled thousands of miles to get here, burning the very thing the art is protesting. Are we missing the point? But we turn to it because art is critical to this event.

The playa doesn't house the art. It is part of the art. It is one giant installation piece screaming environmental concern. Sierra Boyd, a Burning Man volunteer who helps artists find space on the playa, says nearly 20 trees were created for this year's green theme.

"Steampunk Tree," a 30-foot treehouse made from I-beams and steel panels, is anchored to the desert floor. The tree's metal branches spread 25 feet. Burners bellow from the fort's balconies.

A tree formed from glossy magazines literally recycles a tree back into a tree. If that isn't a snake eating its own tail Instead of bark, we look at glossy advertisements, celebrity vacations, Mary Kate and Ashley and all the gossip that we can't seem to live without.

A minimalist forest is constructed from purchased pine and recycled crate slats. It stands scarecrow-like and shadowy. Branches seem weighted. But the stark trees are beautiful, reminiscent of a winter forest. Their shadows stretch long across the desert floor. Well crafted and aligned with sunrise and sunset, it has the greatest ability to connect us with the idea of nature.

But at night it can't compete with the fire-spewing, lighted art cars belching otherworldly sounds, the discos and Thunderdome, or the prayers and chants emanating from the Forgiveness Temple, an elaborately crafted wood structure with scrawled pleas for forgiveness and sincere apologies to loved ones.

The art of Burning Man receives little attention from art theorists, critics and museums. The oft-called hippie folk art has no safe place in fine art dialogue moderated by art-world decision makers.

But this is counter-culture art we're talking about: accessible artwork and literal statements that ask little of the imagination. Just as art elitists scoff at this "radical self-expression," Burner mentality scoffs at the pristine galleries and museums that house philosophical and esoteric contemporary works.

Artists here want to say it loudly. So what do we call this giant ephemeral installation? Is it art or an attraction? And after all of this, will we be forgiven? Surely it's something to think about on the long gas-guzzling journey home.