Endurance art

Endurance art is a kind of performance art involving some form of hardship, such as pain, solitude or exhaustion. Performances that focus on the passage of long periods of time are also known as durational art or durational performances.

Writer Michael Fallon traces the genre to the work of Chris Burden in California in the 1970s. Burden spent five days in a locker in Five-Day Locker Piece (1971), had himself shot in Shoot (1971), and lived for 22 days in a bed in an art gallery in Bed Piece (1972).