What do you think of Chris Burden?

Question

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080611/us_nm/art_toys_dc

Answer 1

I was just looking up stuff about him. I think he is a dumbass. Getting shot isn't art. Shooting at planes isn't art. He had other people build the 30 Rock erector set. Freedom of expression and speech was ruined by the hippies.

I like the erector set. But no one would know about him if it wasn't for him being such a big dumbass. You want art. Look up Theo van Gogh. And his great uncle Vinny. Go to D.C. that whole city is art. Chris burden is just a guy who was trying to act out in his day and got away with it cause he was "expressing himself" he should have been put into a mental institution and the fact that UCLA hired this guy in amazing. Let's send a message to people that letting someone shoot you is art. If you want to get heard just let someone shoot you, then you'll be famous! Way to go.

Answer 2

Art is something that gets a reaction from someone else.  Good art is something that usually gets an intense reaction, or inspires.  Bad art...well, there's alot of bad art in the world.  Chris Burden took the easy, shock value way into the art world...putting his name on that commercial with da vinci and michelangelo, claiming to be on that box in the basement of the gallery when he was famous and causing riots of ppl trying to get in...  - I don't like his artwork, but he got a reaction.  People were obviously inspired, his students are inspired now, He forced people to think outside the box, or at least consider what was already out there.  He made a mockery of part of the cont. art world - that made a statement without speaking.  I appreciate his work more as a sociological study than art, but it says something about him when his shananigans put him in art history books.