Bob Flanagan
1952-1996
Bob Flanagan, a performance artist and poet whose writing and bizarre, sadomasochistic performances centered on his lifelong battle with an incurable illness, died on Thursday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital in Long Beach. He was 43 and lived in Los Angeles. The cause was cystic fibrosis, said his companion and collaborator, Sheree Rose. Mr. Flanagan was said by doctors to be one of the longest-living survivors of cystic fibrosis, which is genetic and usually kills before adulthood. An older sister, Patricia, died of cystic fibrosis in 1979 at the age of 21. A former cystic fibrosis poster boy, Mr. Flanagan recalled that he grew up being told that he had only a few years to live. And he attributed his longevity in part to his ability to "fight pain with pain," by which he meant that he took control of his suffering through the ritualized pain of sadomasochism. In time, he made his art out of this proclivity. His work related to the often painful performances of such early 1970's body artists as Chris Burden, Arnold Schwarzkogler and Carolee Schneemann. Mr. Flanagan's work was the subject of a disturbing exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in SoHo in the fall of 1994…
Films