| Shoot | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Chris Burden |
| Year | 1971 |
| Medium | Performance, video |
Shoot was a 1971 performance by Chris Burden, in which he arranged to have himself non-lethally shot.
| Shoot | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Artist | Chris Burden |
| Year | 1971 |
| Medium | Performance, video |
Shoot was a 1971 performance by Chris Burden, in which he arranged to have himself non-lethally shot.
On November 19, 1971, at the F-Space gallery in Santa Ana, California, [1] Bruce Dunlap (a friend of Chris Burden, the artist) raised a .22-caliber rifle at a distance of 15 feet from Burden and shot him in the left arm. [2] The performance was documented in an eight-second video [3] on 16mm film and photographs. [4] There was a small audience for the performance, including the videographer and photographer. [4] The work was later presented through documentary photographs and text from Burden. [5]
Burden said that the performance came from the common folklore and televisual motif of getting shot in America, whether real or faked, without knowing how it actually felt. The performance was then to feel what he only experienced visually. Additionally, themes from the Vietnam War were frequent on American television news during the time of the performance. [6]
Burden displayed a high degree of control in the work's presentation. [1] In the artist's self-published documentation of the work, the relics of the performance and its text are terse and leave the reader to infer the performance's narrative. [5] Burden himself referred to the photographs as symbols. [1]
Commentators have also noted the role of non-intervention on the part of the performance's attendees, that in a bystander effect, no one contested the potentially deadly action. [7]
Shoot has been described as Burden's "most infamous" work. [4] With Shoot and his later work, Burden pioneered the use of deadly risk as artistic expression. [3] It made him known as "the artist who shot himself", although this description is not technically accurate. [4] As a critic in X-TRA put it, Shoot's primary medium is rumor. [8]
Artist Laurie Anderson's 1976 song, "It's Not the Bullet that Kills You (It's the Hole)", is in reference to Burden's performance. [9]
The performance spawned multiple reproductions. In 1999, an Israeli artist painted Burden after Shoot based on an image in Lucy Lippard's 1973 Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object. [10] Tom LaDuke's 2004 Self-Inflicted Burden is a three-foot self-portrait sculpture modeled after Burden after Shoot. [11] UCLA art student Joe Deutch simulated Russian roulette with what appeared to be a loaded weapon in a 2004 performance class. [12] Burden spurred an ensuing media controversy comparatively larger than Shoot's by resigning his teaching post at the university, blaming the university's inaction against a hostile work environment, and likening the work to domestic terrorism. Burden later said that the offshoot work was meant to co-opt, demean, and parody his own. Burden's retirement in reaction to Deutch's performance assured that the work would be remembered in connection with Shoot. [13]
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a public in a fine art context in an interdisciplinary mode. Also known as artistic action, it has been developed through the years as a genre of its own in which art is presented live. It had an important and fundamental role in 20th century avant-garde art.
Christopher Lee Burden was an American artist working in performance art, sculpture, and installation art. Burden became known in the 1970s for his performance art works, including Shoot (1971), where he arranged for a friend to shoot him in the arm with a small-caliber rifle. A prolific artist, Burden created many well-known installations, public artworks, and sculptures before his death in 2015.
Bastiaan Johan Christiaan "Bas Jan" Ader was a Dutch conceptual and performance artist, and photographer. His work was in many instances presented as photographs and film of his performances. He made performative installations, including Please Don't Leave Me (1969).
Valie Export is an avant-garde Austrian artist. She is best known for provocative public performances and expanded cinema work. Her artistic work also includes video installations, computer animations, photography, sculpture and publications covering contemporary art.
Darren James Almond is an English artist, based in London. He was nominated for the 2005 Turner Prize.
Harry Gamboa Jr. is an American Chicano essayist, photographer, director, illustrator, and performance artist. He was a founding member of the influential Chicano performance art collective Asco.
Burden of Dreams is a 1982 documentary film directed by Les Blank.
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George Steeves is a Canadian art photographer noted for his highly personal work. He has been called by art historian and curator Martha Langford, "among the foremost figures of contemporary Canadian photography."
Barbara Turner Smith is an American artist known for her performance art in the late 1960s, exploring themes of food, nurturing, the body, spirituality, and sexuality. Smith was part of the Feminist Movement in Southern California in the 1970s and has collaborated in her work with scientists and other artists. Her work has been widely exhibited and collected by major museums including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Hammer Museum, MOCA, LACMA, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Shoot most commonly refers to:
Endurance art is a kind of performance art involving some form of hardship, such as pain, solitude or exhaustion. Performances that focus on the passage of long periods of time are also known as durational art or durational performances.
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Urban Light (2008) is a large-scale assemblage sculpture by Chris Burden located at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The 2008 installation consists of restored street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s. Most of them once lit the streets of Southern California.
Edith Baumann is an abstract artist based in Santa Monica, California. Her paintings are minimalist and include geometric repetition and patterns, often presented in intense colors.
I'm too sad to tell you (1970–71) is a mixed media artwork by conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader. The work includes a three-minute black-and-white silent film, still photographs and a post card all related to him crying for an unknown reason. The photographs include both a short hair version and a long hair version. The post cards were mailed to his friends with the inscription “I'm too sad to tell you”. There was an original, now lost, version of the film called Cry Claremont. It was shown in the Pomona College Gallery in Claremont, California in 1971-72.
747 is a 1973 performance art piece by American artist Chris Burden. The piece is one of a number of photographs of Burden's work that is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Trans-Fixed was a 1974 performance by Chris Burden in which he was crucified onto a Volkswagen Beetle.
Five Day Locker Piece was a 1971 performance by Chris Burden in which he stayed in a student locker for five days as part of his UC Irvine Master's thesis.
Hirokazu Kosaka is a Japanese-born American artist, ordained Shingon Buddhist priest, and the Visual Arts Director at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. In 1966 Kosaka moved from Kyoto to Los Angeles where he attended Chouinard Art Institute and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts. While at Chouinard he became influenced by conceptual art, leading to his participation in L.A.’s emerging conceptual art scene during the 1970s. Eventually moving back to Japan, he then traveled to Europe and South America before returning to Los Angeles to live in 1976. In addition to his B.F.A. he also holds a Master of Arts in Theology from Columbia University. His multi-disciplinary practice spans performance art, sculpture, calligraphy, conceptual art and Kyūdō. In 2004, Kosaka performed “In Between The Heartbeat” at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, using Kyūdō, electric blankets, and copier machines to comment critically on technology.
