Chris Burden: TV Ad

TV Ad

Chris Burden

1973

16mm capture of Performance Art

From November fifth to December second, 1973, KHJ-Channel 9 in Los Angeles broadcasted the privately funded black & white “commercial” of Chris Burden’s Through the Night Softly five times a week. Beginning with two title cards at one-and-a-half seconds each (one, the artist’s name; the other, the performance title), seven seconds of real pain were broadcasted afterwards, juxtaposing its (literally) colorful peers. Burden brought art to the viewer making the television the frame for the piece.