Shoot, Chris Burden's most famous performance piece

Sad news today, Chris Burden a landmark performance artist who became one of the more interesting sculptors of the late 20th and 21st century has died of Melanoma at 69. PORT interviewed Burden here and I fondly remember his pilotless ghost ships at PAM a few years ago as they seemed to capture the zeitgeist in that holds still in the USA today. Burden was one of the relatively unknown artists that came through Portland's groundbreaking PCVA program, later achieving legendary status. For me, what always resonated about Burden was the work never seemed self centered, even when he was being shot for his work. He made art a kind of martyrdom or at least a symbol of humanity's reliance on self sacrifice (as a kind of structural necessity for culture... bridges etc.) and as such his example will live on.

Christopher Knight's obituary in the LA Times hits all the right notes.

The Art Newspaper's obituary also touched on the importance of the later work as well.