Chris Burden
Artist
Shoot performance at F-Space Gallery in Santa Ana, California, 1971, Chris Burden. Gelatin silver print documenting the event by Alfred Lutjeans. 9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Art in the Public Interest and 18th Street Arts Center, 2006.M.8.41. © Chris Burden
Chris Burden was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1946 and received a BA from Pomona College in Claremont, California in 1969, and an MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 1971. Burden made a name for himself through his early performances of the 1970s, which entailed acts of physical pain and endurance, including being shot in the arm, crucified to the roof of a car, crawling across broken glass, or lying on a busy thoroughfare, as with Dead Man, performed outside the Mizuno Gallery in 1972. He began working with video in the early 1970s, not only to document his performances, but also to produce conceptual television “commercials” featuring fragmented narratives that raised questions about the role of the artist in mass media culture. In the late 1970s Burden switched to producing kinetic sculptural objects and installations, including The Big Wheel, shown at the Rosamund Felsen Gallery.
Works of Art
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Shoot performance at F-Space Gallery in Santa Ana, California, 1971, Chris Burden. Gelatin silver print documenting the event by Alfred Lutjeans. 9 15/16 x 7 15/16 in. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Art in the Public Interest and 18th Street Arts Center, 2006.M.8.41. © Chris Burden
Explore the Archive
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Video: Discover how L.A. artists of the 1960s and 1970s appropriated commercial culture
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Announcement for Dead Man performance by Chris Burden at the Mizuno Gallery in Los Angeles, November 12, 1972. © Chris Burden. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Riko Mizuno, 2010.M.84.4
