Bob Flanagan

Bob Flanagan
Born (1952-12-26)December 26, 1952
New York City
Died January 4, 1996(1996-01-04) (aged 43)
Los Angeles
Nationality American
Known for sadomasochism, performance art, cystic fibrosis activism
Notable work Why, Visiting Hours
Spouse(s) Sheree Rose (1989–1996)

Bob Flanagan (December 26, 1952 – January 4, 1996) was an American performance artist and writer known for his work on sadomasochism and cystic fibrosis.

Biography

Early life

Flanagan was born in New York City on December 26, 1952 and grew up in Costa Mesa, California, with his mother, Kathy; father, Robert; brothers John and Tim; and sister, Patricia. In childhood, Flanagan was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, from which his sister, Patricia, who died from at age 21, and a second sister, who died soon after birth, also suffered. At age 14, in 1967, Flanagan was named the first poster child for the North Orange County chapter of the National Cystic Fibrosis Research Foundation.[1]

Flanagan graduated from Costa Mesa High School,[2] and studied literature at California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, Irvine. He moved to Los Angeles in 1976.[3]

Death

On January 4, 1996, Flanagan died from complications of cystic fibrosis at 43.[3] He was survived by his wife and close artistic collaborator Sheree Rose.[4]

The final years of Flanagan's life, including his death, are the subject of the Kirby Dick documentary SICK: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist. Flanagan's participation in the film was contingent upon his death being part of the completed project.[5]

Career

Flanagan began reading his poems around Southern California in the mid-1970s, and was part of the poetry community at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. He published his first book, The Kid is the Man, with Bombshelter Press in 1978.[6]

Flanagan met Sheree Rose in 1980,[7] and collaborated closely with her for the rest of his life. Through the 1980s, Flanagan and Rose focused on BDSM community education and organizing, and were founding members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Janus. Their work in performance art began with the 1989 piece Nailed, presented in conjunction with the release of the RE/Search publication Modern Primitives.[8] In Nailed, Flanagan nailed his penis and scrotum to a board while singing "If I Had a Hammer."[9]

Visiting Hours, first shown at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 1992, combined text, video, and live performance, and explored the convergence of illness and SM. It was Flanagan's most widely toured museum exhibition. In the center of the gallery, Flanagan lay in a hospital bed and interacted with museum visitors for the duration of the exhibit.[10] According to curator Laura Trippi, "The installation is designed like a crazy stage set of a children's residential hospital, replete with a torture chamber lurking amidst the institutional cheer."[11]

Music videos

Flanagan being tortured in the almost universally banned Nine Inch Nails music video for "Happiness in Slavery".

Flanagan is featured in the widely banned music video for the song "Happiness in Slavery" by Nine Inch Nails. In the video, he plays a slave who worships a machine. He offers a candle to an altar, before ceremonially undressing and washing. He then lies down on an intelligent torture machine that molests and ultimately kills him, with a mixture of pain and pleasure on his face.

In 1993, Flanagan appeared in the video for the Danzig song "It's Coming Down". In the uncensored version of the video (near the ending), Flanagan pierces his upper and lower lips together and then he hammers a nail through the head of his penis before bleeding on the lens of the camera recording him.

Flanagan also had a small role in Godflesh's "Crush My Soul" video, as an upside-down suspended Christ, hoisted on to the ceiling of a church by Sheree Rose.

Selected works

Partial bibliography

  • The Kid Is the Man (1978)
  • The Wedding of Everything (1983)
  • Slave Sonnets (1986)
  • Fuck Journal (Hanuman Books, 1988)
  • A Taste of Honey with David Trinidad (1990)
  • Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist (1993) (interviews)
  • Pain Journal (1996)[14]
  • The Book of Medicine (manuscript, never published)

References

  1. ↑ McRuer, Robert (2006). Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: NYU Press. p. 187.
  2. ↑ Curtis, Cathy (May 12, 1993). "Flanagan Finds Depicting Pain Is a Pleasure : Art: Survivor of cystic fibrosis and his lover give a 'toned-down' presentation of masochistic works at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Smith, Roberta. "Bob Flanagan, 43, Performer Who Fashioned Art From His Pain". New York Times. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
  4. ↑ Levy, Emanuel (8 February 1997). "Review: 'Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist'". Variety.
  5. ↑ SICK: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist DVD Commentary Track
  6. ↑ Mohr, Bill (January 4, 2016). "Bob Flanagan – On the 20th anniversary of his death". Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Sheree Rose". New World Writing. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
  8. ↑ Takemoto, Tina (2009). "Love is still possible in this junky world: Conversation with Sheree Rose about her life with Bob Flanagan". Women & Performance: A journal of feminist theory. 19: 95. doi:10.1080/07407700802655588.
  9. ↑ Sandahl, Carrie (2000). "Bob Flanagan: Taking It Like a Man". Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism: 97–105.
  10. ↑ Reynolds, Dawn (2007). "Disability and BDSM: Bob Flanagan and the case for sexual rights". Sexuality Research and Social Policy. 4: 40. doi:10.1525/srsp.2007.4.1.40.
  11. ↑ "Exhibitions: Visiting Hours: An Installation by Bob Flanagan in collaboration with Sheree Rose". Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Visiting Hours: An Installation by Bob Flanagan in collaboration with Sheree Rose". The New Museum Digital Archive. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Flanagan, Bob (1993). Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist. San Francisco, CA: Re/Search.
  14. ↑ "Bob Flanagan - Pain Journal". vv.arts.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  • Obituary: Roberta Smith (January 6, 1996). "Bob Flanagan, 43, Performer Who Fashioned Art From His Pain". The New York Times.
  • ONE Archives at the USC Libraries: Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose Collection
  • Excerpts from Flanagan's Pain Journal
  • Why (poem answering the question of Flanagan's lifestyle)
  • Bob Flanagan in the Video Data Bank
  • (in French) Philippe Liotard, "Bob Flanagan: ça fait du bien là où ça fait mal, Quasimodo, n°5, 1999
  • Bob Flanagan on IMDb
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