Synopsis

Stuart Brisley is perhaps best-known for his disturbing physical performances which pushed his body to extremes. But his work as an artist over four decades has embraced sculpture and installation, films and fictions, large-scale participatory projects and, most recently, the Web.

Illustrated with archive footage and photographs, this profile of the artist explores his understandings of collaboration and community, of politics and the market, of humour and failure. At the centre of his diverse work are the essential qualities of what it means to be human.

Brisley’s art remains challenging and provocative, not least in the recent project in which he has orchestrated works centred on a Museum of Ordure. The museum has a curator and a collector, and, at least as it was shown at the Freud Museum, London, an apparent display of human excrement.

theEYE is an excellent introduction to contemporary artists and their works and provides an ideal resource for a wide range of audiences, including galleries, museums and colleges, as well as individual art-lover.