Chris Burden

I feel the true value of art is that it makes thinking visible. And once you can see your thoughts, or the the thoughts of others, then the process of reflection becomes easier because you can almost physically handle your thoughts, and explore their many implications, conclusions, sources and beliefs. So the artists that I will talk about most on this blog have been the ones that have helped progress my thinking and understanding. One such artist, to the chagrin of my wife, is Chris Burden.

My wife is not too thrilled with this selection because she thinks he's psycho- and truthfully she's got a plausible case. Because, you see, Chris Burden made his big splash in the art world as a performance artist. One of his earliest pieces, his graduating show from UC Irvine, was a piece entitled "Five Day Locker Piece."



He stayed, curled up, inside a locker for five days. He was in the middle locker, in the locker above him was a five gallon bottle of water, in the locker below him was an empty five gallon bottle (as you can imagine, by the end of the five days the fill/empty ratios of the two bottles were reversed). But his most famous performance piece, the one that really put him on the map was a piece called "Shoot."




Viewers came to a gallery and witnessed the following scene: Chris Burden comes out along with a friend who is carrying a gun. They stand and face each other about 15 feet apart, when the friend takes aim and shoots Chris Burden in the arm. Chris Burden is taken to the hospital. The piece performed; the show is over. Raise your hand if you agree with my wife.

So here's the deal- I think there is actually some profound learning that can take place when we open ourselves to the lessons. But in the interest of trying to make my posts a little shorter, I'll break the lessons up into 3 parts. This first part will talk about performance art in general. Part 2 will relay the sudden insight I had that led to my appreciation of Chris Burden's work. The third part will continue a look at his art -but the stuff that is less violent (he no longer does performance art).

Performance art. Many may think it is new fandangled. A creation of the wild times that were the '60s and '70s. Surely there were drugs involved. But I would make a case that it hearkens back to a much more primal time in human existence. A time that we can travel to...in the Bible.

Take some fun passages from Ezekiel 4-5, for example. Here the prophet is asked to build a model of the city and then 'play war' against it (incidentally Chris Burden did a similar play act of war, as well as made miniature model sculptures of societies at war), lie on his left side for SEVERAL days (like, almost a year), then cook food over a fire fueled by poop, and finally burn, scatter, or chop up with a sword his locks of hair. Or one of my favorite performances from Isaiah 20 where he went around for three years au natural (or at least in his underwear). Or Hosea whose marriage was actually a sermon, rather than a relationship. Art conveys a message as well, and performance art can be just as impactful as a prophecy from God. And that's the essential thing- it's impactfulness. Anybody can fall asleep during a sermon or a lecture, or pass by a painting or a sculpture without giving it a glance. But heads turn when people are nude; they gawk at shootings and roadside accidents; they talk about people and their interesting spouses. It's hard to ignore. How would it impact you if you saw one of Chris Burden's performances? Or better yet, what if you participated- like the time when he took up residence in an elevator, provided a bowl of pushpins, and posted a sign inviting riders on the elevator to push the pins into his body?





So performance art may be weird, but it is not new. It may make you uncomfortable, but it gives you an opportunity to think exactly why it makes you uncomfortable, and therein may lie the message- something may need to change. And that change may need to be you.