Sunday Entry 6-----Chris Burden

1. Artist Biography and brief explanation of work:

Chris Burden (born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1946) is an American artist.
He studied for his B.A. in visual arts, physics and architecture at Pomona College and received his MFA at the University of California, Irvine from 1969 to 1971.
Burden's reputation as a performance artist started to grow in the early 1970s after he made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central. His most well-known act from that time is perhaps the performance piece Shoot that was made in F Space in Santa Ana, California in 1971, in which he was shot in his left arm by an assistant from a distance of about five meters. Burden was taken to a psychiatrist after this piece. Other performances from the 1970s were Five Day Locker Piece (1971), Deadman (1972), B.C. Mexico (1973), Fire Roll (1973), TV Hijack (1972), Doomed (1975) and Honest Labor (1979).
Several of Burden's other performance pieces were considered somewhat controversial at the time: another "danger piece" was Doomed, in which Burden lay motionless in a museum gallery under a slanted sheet of glass, with a clock running nearby. Unbeknownst to the museum owners, the concept of Doomed was that Chris was prepared to remain in that position until someone from the museum staff interfered in some way with the piece. Forty-five hours later, a museum guard placed a pitcher of water next to Burden, thus ending the piece.

2. 4 images and / or video/sound clips of artwork:

see attached. i put two burden pieces and two videos i found a while back on youtube that deal with ideas of danger and endurance. ok, so theyre cheesy, dont hate me, just get the jist. theres a parallel. as for the tyra shit, parts 2-4 are on youtube, not that you care lol.

3. a link to an interview with the artist or a review:

although i question his answers ("i wanted to be taken seriously as an artist".....wtf?!), this is pretty good:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/05/14/070514craw_artworld_schjeldahl

ok, so i dont put myself in danger. i like this guy for a different reason than i should. but im interested in the idea of endurance and that whole "putting yourself is a less than idea situation but still doing it because you desire a certain outcome" thing.

4. link to gallery representing artist:

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/


5. artist website:

why the fuck doesnt this guy have his own site? he has a wiki, and he has this:
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/burden_chris.html