Finds: February 6, 2014

Martin Schneider, "The Hilariously Deadpan TV Commercials of Chris Burden" at Dangerous Minds:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_hilariously_deadpan_tv_commercials_of_chris_burden

A must for anyone interested in conceptual art of the Seventies. I did not know about these commercials; like most people, I am mainly aware of Chris Burden for his life-threatening art projects, like having himself shot at close range, or crucified on the hood of a Volkswagen.
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RIP French ballet dancer Jean Babilee (1823-2014):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10615458/Jean-Babilee-obituary.html

To the world of ballet he became legendary above all as the original protagonist of a vivid ballet-drama of 1946, Roland Petit’s Le Jeune homme et la mort, which has drawn the world’s greatest male dancers to it ever since. Wearing dungarees rather than a princely jerkin, Babilée played a moody young painter who is visited in his garret by a mysterious woman, and seduced by her into hanging himself...In the first-night enactment of the suicide, which was somewhat experimentally staged, Babilée had to find the strength to dangle on the noose for a full minute in public view. Later he confessed that it terrified him, as he felt himself choking. The death position and scenery were then adapted for a safer outcome.