Masochist Flanagan endures
pain for the artistic pleasure
By Nisha Gopalan
"Sewn up and nailed to a two-by-four," reads the caption written by performance artist Bob Flanagan for a 1989 "Auto-erotic SM" performance.
The picture above the caption reveals Flanagan, from waist-down, with a sewn-up penis (folded in half with the skin under brought up over the penis and sewn together), which he just nailed to a block of wood.
Flanagan represents a prominent figure in the world of performance artists, more specifically, artists who self-mutilate in their performances. The content of his performances have drawn attention to the malleability of performance art's boundaries.
"Symbolic test of endurance" would most accurately describe his art, says Flanagan, best known for his virtually unseen (acting) performance in writer/director Jonathan Reiss' "Happiness In Slavery" video for Nine Inch Nails.
And endure he does. Forty-four year old Flanagan, every day, confronts his cystic fibrosis (CF)--a genetic disease that causes the excessive production of mucus and whose victims seldom endure into adulthood.
"I sort of outwit it (CF)," says Flanagan who, without hesitation, deems his performances empowering. "I put humor to it. I talk about it. I take it out. People who have a disease often keep it quiet. I make a big show out of it, and that way I have control over it."
Flanagan describes the ultimate defeat of his disease: "I want to turn my own death into art ... I want to be buried with a video camera so that people could view me after I was dead inside the coffin."
This former Groundlings (LA comedy group) member and self-proclaimed masochist uses his performances as a means of pleasure to counter the pains of his illness. While growing up, Flanagan found that sadomasochistic (SM) inflictions proved "erotic," in sharp contrast to the "annoying" physical pains associated with his CF.
In "Bob Flanagan's Sick" (1991), a caped and clothespinned Flanagan emulates Superman, or rather a supermasochist, wearing leather underwear and having weights attached to his nipple while chained to a video scaffold holding seven video screens arranged in an "x" formation. As Flanagan recites his poetry, the pun contained within the title becomes more obvious--a combination of his reaction to social accusations that his said abnormal sexual activities classify him as mentally ill as well as the acknowledgment of his physical illness.
The video portion of "Bob Flanagan's Sick," although interspersed with clips of cartoons, depicts scenes of various parts of Flanagan's body subjected to different tortures. In one scene, the audience sees Flanagan with his mouth sewn up, literally, alluding to the profound voice of masochism.
A graduate literature major of Cal State Long Beach, Flanagan gained notoriety as a published poet and artist. With much input from Sheree Rose, Flanagan's lifetime companion and creative partner, Flanagan developed a style of performance which incorporates poetry, improvisational speaking and audio snippets with visual art. He includes images of pop culture, as well as videos and photographs taken by Rose.
"To me it's very much like writing. It's just that it's visual ... it's just not enough to go up there and be self-absorbed and self-obsessive. I have to be entertaining to the audience and be moving in one way or another."
His connection to the audience becomes a crucial element to his shows. "I want their response," he says. "I answer their questions. It's very informal in many respects." Flanagan, somewhat of a humanist in mentality, does not perceive his audiences as sadistic, but rather empathetic.
Flanagan's embrace of masochism certainly challenges Judeo-Christian notions of the sacredness of the body. The performances "attack systems that want to control other people's bodies," says Flanagan.
"The paradox of what I do with masochism is to raise the self up, literally, in some ways. A lot of times I have full body suspensions in my work where I'm lifted off the ground."
During "Visiting Hours" (1992) Flanagan and Rose created, in the Santa Monica Museum of Art, a simulation of a pediatric ward, complete with waiting room. Wearing a hospital gown, Flanagan lay in a hospital bed from which he would later ascend, by means of a rope tied around his ankles being pulled upward.
And there the naked man hung, suspended from the ceiling, upside-down, as if an inverted Christ on an invisible cross. Beneath him, children's alphabet blocks repeatedly spelled "CF" and "SM," and others featuring drawings of butt plugs, whips, chains, scalpels, syringes and dominatrix gear. The alphabet blocks formed a 4-foot by 8-foot wall. In the waiting room, the text to Flanagan's poem, "Why," spiraled around the room.
Ultimately, Flanagan's performance art confronts one's preconceptions of what art should constitute. It, too, addresses the fundamental inquiry of what fuels human existence. While his approach to art is hardly conventional, the fact that he successfully, not to mention, boldly, challenges the art world with his style, deserves notice.
Says Flanagan, "How we survive is an issue worth looking at."