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Podcast: New Books in Western European Studies
Episode: Lucy Weir, "Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury" (Routledge, 2024)
Description: Can self-harm be art? In Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury (Routledge, 2024), Lucy Weir, a Reader in History of Art at the University of Edinburgh rethinks the recent history of performance to understand the ‘injurious turn’ in contemporary live art. The book challenges the usual associations between self-harm and gender by exploring the work of a diverse range of artists. Taking Viennese Actionism as its starting point, the book then offers detailed case studies of, amongst others, André Stitt, Ron Athey, Wafaa Bilal and Pyotr Pavlensky. Each artist is considered in relation to their context, as well as how their work relat...