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A recent controversial performance art piece performed by a student at UCLA has raised the issue of how art, violence and history interact with one another.

Recently, two UCLA professors resigned, in part because they saw a delayed response by the university regarding a performance art piece depicting Russian roulette. While it is not certain what the message of the student’s performance was, one of the professors said he felt the student should have demonstrated more sensitivity in light of current events.

“Columbine has happened; 9/11 has happened,” said Chris Burden, one of the art professors who quit, in a Jan. 25 Chronicle of Higher Education article. “There are restrictions.”

War and violence are not strange topics to the art community. Art scholars have noticed trends in the representation of war and violence throughout history, from World War I to the current war on terrorism. The graduate art student involved in the controversial performance art piece, Joseph Deutch, performed on the night of Nov. 29 at the graduate art studio in Culver City. Burden, a new genres professor and Nancy Rubins, his wife and sculpture professor, submitted their retirement work on Dec. 20, partly because the university refused to suspend the student. They also cited other departmental issues as reasons for their retirement.

One of Burden’s most famous projects in the early 1970s was a performance art piece titled “Shoot,” in which Burden was shot in the arm by an assistant with a .22-caliber rifle from 13 feet away. To art history professor Al Boime, violence and art are closely related.

“You can say that in one sense, the history of art records the history of violence,” said Boime, who noted that the art movements surrealism and dadaism were responses to World War I. “You could say the Buddhist priests in Vietnam were performance artists when they doused themselves with gasoline and ignited themselves,” he said.

While artists may have a motivation to produce violent art in a time of war, there is a risk of alienating viewers, said art history Professor David Kunzle. There is a fine line between turning people away from one’s art and provoking a reaction against war, he said.

“You may be hitting someone in the gut, but they might say, ‘I can’t deal with this,’” he said.

There is also a risk of attracting backlash, as in the case of the graduate student, who is currently under investigation by the university to determine if he violated the student code of conduct.

Many have noticed that the amount of art generated in response to the war on terrorism is not as much as the amount created during the Vietnam war, which Kunzle believes will change.

Kunzle said it took years before substantial amounts of art were produced in reaction to Vietnam and said there will be more art created in reaction to the war on terrorism in the future.

“Some calculated there were as many as a hundred-thousand posters made about the (Vietnam) war,” Kunzle said.

Others feel there should be more of a response to current events. Thomas Lawson, the dean of the art school at the California Institute of Arts in Valencia, said he is surprised at the lack of response to the war from the art world.

“There’s probably a fear of drawing attention to anything not entertaining,” Lawson said. “In the late ’60s, people were willing to put themselves on the line against the war.”

While Lawson and Kunzle said the volume of war-themed art produced now is not as large as in the past, Boime said he believes the nature of some art has become more extreme than before, especially in performance art, where some have resorted to self-mutilation and other graphic forms of artistic expression. Art that depicts violence has become increasingly gruesome because people have become less sensitive to violence, Boime said.

“Ordinary violence is insufficient, so violence has to be exaggerated,” he said.

Last year, an art display regarding the war in Iraq elicited a violent reaction. San Francisco art gallery owner Lori Haigh was punched in the face, leaving her with a black eye, apparently in response to a painting she installed depicting the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

Art created in light of or in response to war and violence is not always meant to critique, but rather can be used to see how violence unites or separates, Boime said.

“Art can be used to heal in the aftermath of war or it can also be used to deconstruct war. Art can be used to promote war,” he said, speaking of propaganda.