Heralded by the New York Times as a "latter-day Houdini," David Blaine has redefined the performance art spectacular with unique challenges that have set new boundaries of human endurance.

Blaine was born in Brooklyn, New York. When he was four years old, he watched a magician performing on the subway. The sight sparked an idea that would grow into a tour de force.

At 23, Blaine directed and produced Street Magic, an original TV program that turned the cameras on Blaine's audience and participants in simple illusions. This new perspective changed the genre and made Blaine a household name.

From there, Blaine continued to redefine the boundaries of endurance stunts. With Buried Alive, Blaine was entombed for seven days under Manhattan's West Side in a transparent, plastic coffin, completely visible to the pedestrians passing above. Upon his release he reflected, "What I saw was every race of people, every age group and every religion, gathered around smiling. That made all of this worth it."
The successes of this event led to other spectacles featuring cramped spaces and extreme conditions. Frozen in Time saw him encased in a block of ice for nearly three days. In Vertigo, Blaine stoodatop a 100-foot pillar without a safety net in New York's Bryant Park for 35 hours.

The New England Journal of Medicine made Blaine's 2003 event in London an actual case study on the human body's ability to survive. With only pure water, Blaine spent 44 days in a Plexiglass box suspended over the river Thames. He emerged 60 pounds lighter and captured imaginations around the world.

In 2008, Blaine shocked Oprah Winfrey and her audience, while shattering the Guinness World Record for holding his breath underwater for 17 minutes and 4.5 seconds

David Blaine is truly an extraordinary artist who hopes his work inspires his audience to reach for the creativity and strength that lie within us.