Burden and Abramović

 I'm currently taking a modern and contemporary art history class and am loving it. I've discovered so many artists that take art to a whole new level compared to the artists I've known about- these new artists are daring, destructive, and creating these beautiful messes that scream at the audience even if the artist or art isn't making any sound.

Chris Burden is an artist who intrigues me because his work is centered around personal danger. In one of his performance pieces he had someone shoot him in the arm; in another, he lay on his back on a car and had nails hammered through his palms and into the car. In 1974 Burden spent 22 hours laying atop a triangular platform. He was unable to be seen and he didn't talk, eat, or come down the entire time.

Another artist that I am intrigued with, so much so that I may have found a favorite artist, is Marina
Abramović. She explores the relationship of performer and audience along with the limits of the mind and body. Just like Burden, Abramović has inflicted pain into her body for the art of the process. She has cut a star, which made her bleed, into her lower abdomen; following this, she whipped herself repeatedly. Audiences expected nothing less from Abramović than this self mutilation art in which she tried to see how far the body can really go.

She performed less physically painful pieces: For three months she sat at a table, at which anyone could sit across from her,and stared. She became a mirror to the person looking at her, in which they explored their own emotions. Both the participants and Marina became emotional and at times cried. Since this piece is so personal, and hard to understand through words, I highly recommend checking out her documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present. It made me admire the artist even more because you got to actually see the physical and emotional pain she has went through in some of her art.