L"ESPIRIT D'ESCALIER:THOMAS DEMAND: D.A. P

Chris Burden : Locus and Publishing Co

Chris Burden's dedication to the ideal of the extreme has made a myth of the man. From his graduate piece in his Master Of Fine Arts program at UC Irvine where he locked himself in a school locker for five days, to his decision in November 1971 to make a piece called "Shoot", in which a friend fired a gun fifteen feet away from him to create a "wound" as art piece, Burden has certainly pushed art's self-definition to its edge. Almost self-destructively so. But it is the April 23 1974 performance, in Venice California when Burden had himself cruxified to a Volkswagen and then driven for probably a good 30 seconds on a speedway, that his place was secured in the annals of art infamy. It was supposed to be the kind of anti-art, not made for consumption or for that matter- for posterity - but here it is, one of the greatest images in contemporary art history and the cover moment of the must-buy overview of Burden's work. Currently available via D.A.P. By Locus and Publishing Co. $85.00.