| Bob Flanagan | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 26, 1952 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 4, 1996 (aged 43) Long Beach, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Performance artist |
Bob Flanagan (December 26, 1952 – January 4, 1996)[1] was an American performance artist, comic, writer, poet, and musician.
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He was born in New York City on December 26, 1952, and grew up in Glendale, California. At a young age he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a condition which would influence his art and ultimately claim his life. He studied literature at California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, Irvine. He moved to Los Angeles in 1976. In 1978, he published his first book, The Kid is the Man. He also worked with the improv comedy group The Groundlings.[2]
On January 4, 1996, he died of cystic fibrosis, aged 43.[3]
He was the subject of the documentary SICK: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997) a film by Kirby Dick,[1] which films the final years of Bob's life.
While some of his performances were notable for acts of extreme masochism (on at least one occasion he hammered a nail through his penis, while cracking jokes), he also wrote humorous songs, many of them intended as much for children as adults.
He briefly appeared in Michael Tolkin's The New Age as one of the alternate lifestylers encountered by Peter Weller's character.
His latest posthumous piece by Sheree Rose entitled Bobaloon, was shown in Japan, featuring a 20 foot tall inflatable Flanagan complete with pierced penis, ball gag and straitjacket.
Flanagan is featured in the widely banned music video for the song "Happiness in Slavery" by Nine Inch Nails.[1] 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, all with a mixture of pain and pleasure on his face. There is a rumor that the only part of the video that was not real was the final sequence in which the man is engulfed by the machine. In reality, the poking and pulling were pretty much the only "real" aspects to the video. Reiss is fascinated with hydraulics, and it clearly shows with this video. The blood and gore were created by mashing bananas and mixing them with chocolate. This would look more realistic when photographed in black-and-white.
In 1993 he also 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.
He also had a bit part in Godflesh's "Crush My Soul" video, as a suitably blasphemous, upside-down suspended Christ, hoisted on to the ceiling of a traditional-looking church by his partner/companion Sheree Rose.