Chris Burden Movies

A probing portrait of Chris Burden, an artist who took creative expression to the limits and risked his life in the name of art.

May 7th, 1974, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Chris Burden relentlessly dunks his head in a filled-up sink, trying to breath water.

November 19, 1971, F Space, Santa Ana, California: “At 7:45 p.m. I was shot in the left arm by a friend”.

In this narrative performance for video, Burden tells the story of his relationship with a truck named "Big Job." To relate his autobiographical...

A film about a sculpture by Chris Burden.

During the 1980 exhibition of Burden's monumental kinetic sculpture The Big Wheel at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, Burden and Feldman were...

The life and work of enigmatic Dutch/Californian conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader, who in 1975 disappeared under mysterious circumstances at sea in the...

Back to You is a piece that attempted to deal with my own myth, the myth of me as the aggressive artist, threatening audiences the evil-kin evil of...

The TV Commercials 1973–1977 (1973–77/2000) is a compilation of four video works—TV Ad (1973), Poem for L.A. (1975), Chris Burden...

Accompanying video to the exhibition "Chris Burden: A Twenty-Year Survey", Newport Harbor Art Museum, California, USA, 1988. Survey, interviews, etc.

In this short compilation, Chris Burden introduces and narrates selected clips from his public art performances including 'Shoot', 'Bed Piece', and...

During the early seventies I conceived a way to break the omnipotent stranglehold of the airwaves that broadcast television had. The solution was to...

In 1973, Burden paddled a small canvas kayak from a town on the Sea of Cortez in Baja California to an uninhabited beach further south, carrying only...

At 6 p.m. three invited spectators came to my studio. The room was fifteen feet by twenty-five feet and well lit by natural light. Wearing no...

I began the evening watching television, smoking and drinking beer. The other artists were preparing their pieces. People were filling the museum and...

At 8 p.m. I lay down on La Cienega Boulevard and was covered completely with a canvas tarpaulin. Two fifteen-minute flares were placed near me to...

For two hours each night, from 8 to 10 p.m. on September 10–12, 1971, performance artist Chris Burden was bolted to the stone floor of F Space...

In 1973, Chris Burden bought a month worth of late-night ad time on a local TV station in Los Angeles, and aired a 10-second film clip of Through the...

For the 22 days between February 18th to March 10th, 1972 at Market Street Program in Venice Beach, California, Chris Burden performed his Bed Piece....