Bed piece, 1972 by Chris Burden
In the video in Tough and tender Chris Burden narrates his performance artworks characterised by focused attention to mind over physical body.
Chris Burden was born in Boston in 1946 and studied art in Los Angeles. He achieved international scholarly recognition for his performance art. Later he produced large-scale installations that drew upon engineering and physics. He died from melanoma in 2015.
The rare video documentation of performances from 1971 to 1974 is lent by Electronic Arts Intermix New York which preserves international artists’ performance to video and video art.