DEFINE ART:

An internal investigation into the conduct of a UCLA graduate student named Joseph Deutch who simulated Russian roulette during an art-class performance is now over and he is not expelled, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Two UCLA artist-professors left the university after student Joseph Deutch's stunt last January, saying through a spokesman that he had effectively terrorized his classmates. Curiously, one of those professors, Chris Burden, made his name in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a series of "self-punishing" performances in which he variously had himself shot in the arm, crucified on the hood of a VW Beetle, placed in the path of a flaming gasoline wave, etc. Mr. Deutch, by comparison, was only pretending.

The Wall Street Journal, "Taste," Friday, June 17, 2005