26 Facts About Chris Burden

Christopher Lee Burden was an American artist working in performance art, sculpture, and installation art.

Chris Burden grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, France and Italy.

At the age of 12, Chris Burden had emergency surgery, performed without anesthesia, on his left foot after he was severely injured in a motor-scooter crash on the island of Elba.

Chris Burden began to work in performance art in the early 1970s.

Chris Burden made a series of controversial performances in which the idea of personal danger as artistic expression was central.

One of Chris Burden's most reproduced and cited pieces, Trans-Fixed took place on April 23,1974, at Speedway Avenue in Venice, California.

Chris Burden was out of sight from all viewers and he could not see them either.

Chris Burden planned to remain in that position until a museum employee prioritized his well-being over the artistic integrity of the piece.

Chris Burden was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts in 1978.

Chris Burden cited the performance in his letter of resignation, saying that the student should have been suspended during the investigation into whether school safety rules had been violated.

In 1979, Chris Burden first exhibited his notable Big Wheel exhibition at Rosamund Felsen Gallery.

In 2008, Chris Burden reported having subsequently sold Samson to "a collector in Brazil".

Chris Burden suspended the cardboard models on monofilaments from the ceiling, placing them at various heights so that as a group they appear to be a school of fish swimming through the ocean of the gallery space.

In 2005, Chris Burden released Ghost Ship, his crewless, self-navigating yacht which docked at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 28 July after a 330-mile 5-day trip from Fair Isle, near Shetland.

In 2008, Chris Burden created Urban Light, a sculptural work consisting of 202 found antique street lights that had once stood around Los Angeles.

Chris Burden bought the lights from the contractor who installed Urban Light, Anna Justice.

At the time of his death, Chris Burden was working on a watermill next to Frank Gehry's not then yet completed aluminum tower at LUMA Arles, which was finished in 2021.

Chris Burden's work remained unfinished at the time of his passing as well.

Chris Burden has had major retrospectives at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California, and the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna.

In 1999 Chris Burden exhibited at the 48th Venice Biennale and the Tate Gallery in London.

Chris Burden's work is featured in prominent museum collections such as the LACMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Gallery, London; the Middelheimmuseum, Antwerp, Belgium; the Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporanea, Brazil; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others.

Chris Burden was represented by Gagosian Gallery from 1991 until his death.

David Bowie's 1977 song "Joe the Lion" was inspired by Chris Burden's 1974 Trans-Fixed, where Chris Burden crucified himself on the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle.

Chris Burden was mentioned in the Jeff Lindsay book Dexter by Design, and in Norman Mailer's book The Faith of Graffiti.

From 1967 to 1976, Chris Burden was married to Barbara Chris Burden, who documented and participated in several of his early artworks.

Chris Burden died on May 10,2015,18 months after having been diagnosed with melanoma.