Art Prof who had himself shot as "performance art" wigs out when...

..a grad student fakes Russian Roulette. Go figure.

The professor:

Burden made his name in the early 1970s with influential and controversial performance art. In his best-known piece, "Shoot," performed in a Santa Ana gallery while he was a graduate student at UC Irvine, Burden had an assistant stand 15 feet away and shoot him in the upper arm with a .22-caliber rifle.

The student:

The brief performance involved a simulation of Russian roulette, in which the student appeared before the class holding a handgun, put in what appeared to be a bullet, spun the cylinder, then pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, according to one student's account that was confirmed by law enforcement sources. The weapon didn't fire. The student quickly left the room, then the audience heard a shot from outside. What ensued is not clear, but police said no one was hurt.

The incident prompted investigations by university police and the dean of students' office into whether the student violated criminal law or student conduct codes. There is some confusion over whether the gun was real.

Prof Burden and spouse have both resigned from UCLA because of "university officials' lack of urgency about the handgun incident."

SO, a guy who had himself actually shot resigns in outrage because UCLA got insufficiently upset when one of his students pretended to shoot himself?

This did cost them $216,600 in lost salaries, so I give them credit for taking an expensive stand against transgressive art. Maybe they'll take up landscape painting.

Thanks to http://www.artsjournal.com/ for the tip.

And thanks for the refreshing attitude from UCLA.

Paste: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-profs22jan22,0,2966361.story