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It's Art: A Day-Long Nap On a Bed of Nails

This month, performance artist Billy X Curmano will spend an entire day napping on a bed of nails, beneath a blanket of tacks, wearing kevlar-lined pajamas.
24-hour World Wide Rolling Nap, Billy Curmano as American Idle, Performance, 2014. Photo: Margarita Baumann (cropped), via

Every now and then, The Creators Project comes across an artwork that surprises and delights us every bit as much as it confuses us and otherwise has us begging for answers. This is art that defies conventions, challenges sensibilities, and breaks down barriers between comprehension and critique. You might like it—you might not "get it." But we do. Turn on, take a deep breath, and just remember: It's art!

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Minnesota performance artist Billy X Curmano isn't afraid to get physical. In the past, he's gone on a 42-day fast in the Mojave, swim the entire length of the Mississippi River, and even spent three days buried alive. Now, for 24-Hour Worldwide Rolling Nap, a piece Curmano wants to use to call attention to the difficulty of rest in our highly-connected age, the 60-something will be napping on a bed of nails, beneath a blanket of tacks, wearing kevlar-lined pajamas, for the duration of a full day.

"I think it's in him, it's so strong, that desire to create, and to do things," Margarita Baumann, Curmano's girlfriend of 12 years, told the Daily Astorian. "He sees what's going on in the environment and the world. He sees how the environment is impacted. He just felt like he had to do something about it, do his share." For Curmano, a veteran who also paints and plays jazz, the piece also represents a thread in a series of works he says helps with the post-traumatic stress he still deals with in the wake of an injury sustained during the Vietnam War. The performance of 24-Hour Worldwide Rolling Nap will take place this month at the artist's home in Winona, Minnesota.

Click here to learn more about Billy X Curmano.

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