logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2021
8m 57s

Shoot: A milestone in performance art

Bbc World Service
About this episode

In November 1971 a young American artist decided to get a friend to take a shot at him - in the name of art. His name was Chris Burden and the shooting would go down in the history of performance art. He spoke to Lucy Burns in 2012 about the ideas behind the event.

This programme is a rebroadcast.

(Photo: Chris Burden just after being shot. Courtesy of Chris Burden)

Up next
Yesterday
Argentina’s national genetics bank created to identify stolen babies
In 1982, Argentine geneticist Victor Penchaszadeh was living in exile in New York when he received a call that would change the course of his career. Two founding members of the campaign group, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, were asking for his help to find their kidnappe ... Show More
10m 41s
Jul 8
The mystery of Evita’s corpse
When Eva Peron, Argentina's most famous First Lady, died in 1952, her body was embalmed. Three years later, her widower, Juan Peron, was deposed in a coup. But military officers feared her corpse would become a rallying point of protest against the new government. So they stole i ... Show More
10m 34s
Jul 7
Argentina’s 'trial of the juntas'
In 1985, Argentina’s former military leaders were put on trial accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering thousands of their own people. The ‘trial of the juntas’ was the first major prosecution of war crimes since the Nuremberg trials following World War Two. Between 1976 an ... Show More
10m 40s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2023
Jeremy Deller
Winner of the Turner Prize in 2004 and Britain’s official representative at the 2013 Venice Biennale, Jeremy Deller is an unconventional artist whose work is as likely to be seen in streets or fields as in museums and galleries. In his work The Battle of Orgreave he restaged a mo ... Show More
44m 3s
Apr 2023
Hudson River: America's First Art Movement
English-born artist Thomas Cole emigrated to the United States in 1818. Six years later he set up the Hudson River School, which became America's first art movement. Betsy Jacks, director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, tells Don how these artists captured the country' ... Show More
27m 50s
Dec 2020
From Graffiti to the Gallery, Futura Talks About Art
Born Leonard McGure, Futura made his reputation spray painting subway trains in New York City in the 1970s as “Futura 2000” — the number was dropped in 1999. He would go on to be part of the booming graffiti and street art movement in the 1980s, but was forced to depend on Europe ... Show More
1h 4m
Feb 2024
Andy Warhol, presented by Halcyon Gallery
Talk Art Special Episode! We meet Paul Green, President and Founder of Halcyon Gallery and Kate Brown, Halcyon's Creative Director. #ADWe explore the epic new Andy Warhol exhibition BEYOND THE BRAND, dedicated to the life and work of Andy Warhol which is now open at Halcyon's gal ... Show More
1h 3m
Jun 2023
Amazing photographs and the people who took them
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories. We focus on some of the world’s best known photographs - and the photographers who took them. We find out why Lee Miller was in Hitler’s bath in the dying days of World War Two; and historian Dr Pippa Oldfi ... Show More
51m 43s
Jun 2023
A Lasting Shot
In 1968, just moments after Robert F. Kennedy was shot, a young photographer for The Los Angeles Times — Boris Yaro — captured the scene in an image that's haunted the nation ever since. In this episode of the StoryCorps podcast, we remember RFK and we revisit the story of that f ... Show More
13m 42s
Jul 2017
The Oka Crisis
A watershed moment for Canada's indigenous people as Mohawks take on the developers, the birth of UKIP in Britain, memories of the poet Irina Ratushinskaya who died earlier this month - plus dance music with ballet star Nureyev's defection and illegal raving in England's countrys ... Show More
50m 31s
Oct 2023
Art History Horror Story: The Nightmare
Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) was the man behind one of art history’s most famous spooky paintings: ‘The Nightmare.’ But how much do you actually know about this dream-fuelled Gothic image?Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (1781). Oil on Canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Mich ... Show More
1h 18m
Apr 2023
A brush with... Alfredo Jaar
Ben Luke talks to Alfredo Jaar about his influences—from writers to film-makers, musicians and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work. Jaar, who was born in 1956, in Santiago, Chile and has been based in New York since the early ... Show More
57m 37s