“Burden” – Rarely [MOVIE REVIEW]
A scene from BURDEN, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. Chris Burden, one of the leading artists emerging in the 70s and part of the so-called “California School,” is given an excellent posthumous send-off in Richard Dewey and Timothy Marrinan’s documentary entitled “Burden.” Burden rose to national fame, some would say infamy, while still a graduate student in the newly formed art division at the University of California Irvine campus (UCI). His graduate student piece in which he folded himself into a small art room locker and remained for five days propelled him into the minimalist performance art forefront. Burden not only thought outside the box, but created one just for himself. Radical, punishing and mesmerizing, Burden followed up this 1971 piece with increasingly dangerous feats of self-flagellation, usually featuring himself as his canvas. Personal in the extreme, some of his other important works were, “Shoot,” in which he has a marksman, a fellow student, shoot him in the arm (it was intended that the bullet only graze his arm but, well, sh*t happens and the through and through resulted in a hospital stay and police report); “Deadman,” in…
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