Burning Man 2014

David Normal’s Crossroads of Curiosity is an epic suite of lightbox murals that extends the notion of a “cabinet of curiosity” outward from the rectilinear arrangement of objects in glass cases to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples.

Crossroads of Curiosity was installed at Burning Man 2014 and had a 5 month exhibition at the British Library in 2015. The collage-based paintings were composed exclusively from the digitized antiquarian illustration collection of the British Library. Crossroads was essential to supporting the Burning Man Festival's 2014 theme, "Carvansary", in close collaboration with Larry Harvey, and was displayed prominently at the "Man Pavilion" where the Burning Man Effigy stood.

These murals were originally created for Burning Man 2014. The theme of that year's festival was 'Caravansary'. The Caravansary at Burning Man was conceived of as 'the crossroads of a dreamland: a bazaar of the bizarre wherein treasures of every sort, from every land and age, flow in and out to be flaunted, lost, exploited and discovered.'

David Normal’s Crossroads of Curiosity is an epic suite of lightbox murals that extends the notion of a “cabinet of curiosity” outward from the rectilinear arrangement of objects in glass cases to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples.

Crossroads of Curiosity was installed at Burning Man 2014 and had a 5 month exhibition at the British Library in 2015. The collage-based paintings were composed exclusively from the digitized antiquarian illustration collection of the British Library. Crossroads was essential to supporting the Burning Man Festival's 2014 theme, "Carvansary", in close collaboration with Larry Harvey, and was displayed prominently at the "Man Pavilion" where the Burning Man Effigy stood.