10 of the most expensive art installations featured at Burning Man

Burning Man 2017

Burning Man, the annual festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, features a slew of wild and elaborate art installations.

Sticking to Burning Man's tradition of returning the desert to its original state, many of the art pieces are burned at the end of the festival. Some of them, however, are transported elsewhere after their time in Black Rock City.

The festival began more than 30 years ago as a bonfire among friends on a beach in San Francisco; as it has evolved, its art installations have become increasingly more elaborate, with some costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to build.

We've looked back through the years at some of the priciest installations. A caveat: Several artists would not disclose how much money they spent on their installations, adding that some of the funds were covered by anonymous donors. Many installations, however, collected large sums of money through crowdfunding campaigns. We took those campaigns — as well as how much money they ultimately raised — into account.

This year's Burning Man begins on August 26. Before 70,000 people gather on the "playa" for the festival, take a look at some of the most expensive art installations at Burning Man:

The Temple of Whollyness was built in 2013 after a $65,000 fundraising campaign.

Since 2000, a new temple has been created each year for Burning Man.

In 2013, the tradition continued when a group of artists named The Collection Crew launched a $65,000 Kickstarter campaign to help fund construction costs. The artists surpassed their goal by more than $11,000.

A 64-foot-tall pyramid was located in the center of the temple, built only out of interlocking pieces of wood. According to The Collection Crew's fundraising page, the design did not require any nails, glue, or metal fasteners.

A massive sculpture of two human figures had a $265,000 budget.

Embrace, a sculpture of two human figures, stood 72 feet tall at Burning Man 2014.

A $47,000 Kickstarter campaign helped fund the project, which was estimated to cost about $265,000 total.

More than 160,000 pounds of wood were used to construct Embrace, and festival attendees could make their way through its interior on spiral staircases.

"Embrace is our testament to the moment, a cathedral dedicated to the beauty of immediacy," the artists, The Pier Group, wrote on their Kickstarter page. "This is a sculpture made to honor all of the relationships in our lives, a pilgrimage route through our bodies and our minds."

R-Evolution was the final sculpture in artist Marco Cochrane's three-part Bliss Project.

Artist Marco Cochrane finished his Bliss Project in 2015 with R-Evolution, a 45-foot sculpture that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

An Indiegogo campaign raised $40,845 for the project, which followed the first two installations in this Burning Man series: Bliss Dance and Truth is Beauty.

On his website, Cochrane wrote that Bliss Project sculptures are meant to de-objectify women and inspire people to take action toward ending violence against women.

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