Chris Burden - Research Paper Example

Chris Burden Introduction Chris Burden is a renowned American artist who is working in the peripheries of performance, sculpture and installation art. Born in the year of 1946 at Massachusetts in Boston, this revolutionary artist has worked and has been working on the philosophy for the genre of art that is contemporary in nature and operates with an objective of exploring, unveiling and simplifying modern art without any academic or condescending fact. Thesis Statement The thesis explores Burden’s work as the theme of personal danger at the central of the artistic performance as the major point of contention and perspective.

Biographical Information Burden was educated at the Pomona College and studied B.A in visual arts, physics and architecture. He received his MFA under the University of California, Irvine during 1969 to 1971. Burden commenced his career during the first half of 1970s and his most famous performance piece ‘Shoot’ evolved during this half of his career. This act involved shooting of Burden in his left arm by the assistant from a distance of about five meters. After this, Burden produced a series of controversial performances; prominent among them were ‘Five Day Locker Piece’ in the year 1971, ‘Deadman’ in the year 1972, ‘B.C. Mexico’ in the year 1973.

In the same year, Burden also produced another famous performance piece bearing the title, ‘Fire Roll’. Other noteworthy performance piece by Burden during this era was ‘TV Hijack’ in the year 1972, ‘Doomed’ in the year 1975 and ‘Honest Labor’ in the year 1979. One of Burden’s famous pieces bears the title, ‘Trans-Fixed’ and was performed in the year 1974. The performance took place at Speedway Avenue in Venice, California. In this performance, Burden was seen laying face-up on a Volkswagen Beetle and was nailed by his hands portraying crucifixion on the car.

The car was pushed out of the garage and the engine was rewed for the span of two minutes and then again the car was pushed back into the garage. Later in the year 1974, Burden performed another noteworthy piece ‘White Light/White Heat’ at the Ronal Feldman gallery in New York. This piece bears the title ‘Doomed’ and is one of the most controversial pieces of the time. In the year 1978, Burden joined the University of California, Los Angeles as a professor and he resigned from the post in the year 2005 for a controversy pertaining to the mishandling of the classroom by a student in performing a piece that captivated the echoes of one of the performances by Burden.

Exploration of Thesis Burden tried to portray the danger that lies for an artist at a personal level while performing the art. The idea has been merging of creator and creativity at a greater cosmos where any danger inflicted upon the artist can assess his creation and vice versa and both the creator and his creativity get inseparable as an entity. In order to prove his point of contention, Burden took the pain and danger of personal physical and psychological loss at myriad times. His point of contention is so important for him that he did not ever hesitate to undertake any risk for portraying the theme of his work.

Conclusion Chris Burden is a genius contemporary modern artist whose work is greater than any parameter which can scale the intensity of such work. He is inseparable from all his works and undoubtedly as a signatory of modern art from the genre of performing art, Chris Burden is timeless and universal in his theme, presentation and performance. Bibliography Gagosian Gallery (2005). Chris Burden. Menu Artist. Retrieved Online on March 31, 2011 from http://www.gagosian.com/artists/chris-burden/