David Best
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the footballer with the same name, see David Best (footballer).
David Best (b. 1945) is an internationally-renowned American sculptor. He is well-known for building immense temples out of recycled wood sheets (discarded from making toys and other punch-outs) for the Burning Man festivals, where they are then burnt to the ground in a spectacle of light and heat.
Best received a master's degree in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he first took classes at the age of six. His commitment to public art seems rooted in 1960s-era idealism. His works — ceramic sculpture, collages and more — have been shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art and elsewhere.
Best first began collaborating with others, 20 years ago, when he embarked upon a sideline: stripping down vehicles and giving them total sculptural makeovers, using recycled materials and found objects, often retrieved from dumps and dumpsters. Since then, he has created sculptures from the skeletons of 36 cars and two buses, and worked with more than 10,000 people.
Best built his first Burning Man Temple in 2000, The Temple of the Mind. In 2001, Burning Man helped fund the Temple projects and David, along with Jack Hayes, built the much larger Temple of Tears. 2001 marked the beginning of a new and profound ritual for the tens of thousands of participants who attend Burning Man each year. After days of writing prayers on the structures, of affixing offerings from one’s life such as pictures, paintings, etc., or of leaving the ashes of loved ones, etc. the Temple is burned on Sunday night. In 2002 the community was blessed with the Temple of Joy. In 2003, David took a departure from the wood temples and gave us the ornate paper Temple of Honor. In 2004 the Temple of Stars was a quarter mile long and almost 120’ high. David took a break in 2005 and 2006 to work on personal projects, including the Hayes Green Temple in San Francisco. Returning in 2007, David, Tim Dawson and the temple crew built the Temple of Forgiveness. It is unknown at this time if David will return to build a temple in 2008. He is ‘thinking’ about a way to have the entire Burning Man Community help build the Temple.
Contents |
[edit] Projects
[edit] Burning Man
- Temple of the Mind (2000)
- Temple of Tears (aka Temple of Memory) (2001)
- Temple of Joy (2002)
- Temple of Honor (2003)
- Temple of Stars (2004)
- Temple of Forgiveness (2007)
[edit] Other similar projects
- Chapel of the Laborer (2005)
- Temple at Hayes Green (2005)
