Bob, Bob, Bob.......Where do you start with Bob??
Bob Flanagan was an American writer, poet, performance artistic and comic, he suffered from cystic fibrosis (a congenital, nearly always–fatal disease). He used his pain and struggle with the illness as an object for his work. His sadomasochistic performances were based on his battle against the disease, although he was at the time, one of the longest-living survivors of cystic fibrosis, we lost him at the age of 43.
The physical pain of his childhood suffering was primarily alleviated by masturbation and sexual experimentation, where pain and pleasure became impossible to separate, resulting in a lifelong practice of extreme masochism. In interviews, Bob detailed his sexual practices and his extraordinary relationship with long-term partner and Mistress, photographer Sheree Rose. He talks of branding, piercing, whipping, bondage, and endurance trials. These extreme narratives are laced with humor, honesty, and self-reflective irony.
Bob also wrote several books including - The Kid is a Man - The Wedding Of everything - Slave Sonnets - Fuck Journal and Pain Journal.
"The Wall of Pain" is a 1982 piece in which Sheree Rose took a photo of Bob every time she punched, whacked, and whipped him with over 50 implements, 36 shots each. His facial expressions are mostly some sort of a smile.
Their work in performance art began with the 1989 piece Nailed, presented in conjunction with the release of the RE/Search publication Modern Primitives. In Nailed, Flanagan nailed his penis and scrotum to a board while singing "If I Had a Hammer."
Bob and Sheree's collaborations culminated in the exhibition Visiting Hours at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 1993 and the New Museum in 1994. It combined text, video, and live performance, and explored the convergence of illness and SM. The show 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. 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."
Sheree continued to make artwork honoring his legacy and their collaboration. Sheree made contributions to the documentary Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist . She was also commissioned by Japan to produce Boballoon—a 20-foot inflatable statue of Flanagan that was exhibited at Big Space in Tokyo. Long after his demise, Flanagan’s artwork with Rose continues to be a model for artists dealing with illness and death.
Bob in the almost universally banned video for Nine Inch Nails 'Happiness in slavery'
The final years of Flanagan’s life, including his death, are the subject of the 1997 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, so you actually see Bob slip away. After Bob’s death, the film ends with the video Why? which explains all the reasons Bob was into masochism. It was a poem meant to set his non-S/M family and friends’ minds at ease, and to show them that it’s really not that wrong or scary.
Sick was a surprise hit at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Prize.
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