Continue playing

(Time remaining: )

Play from beginning

Play from beginning

Continue playing "{{ controller.videos[controller.getVideo(controller.currentVideo)].segmentParentTitle}}"

{{controller.videos[controller.getVideo(controller.currentVideo)].title}} has ended.

{{ currentTime | date:'HH:mm:ss':'+0000' }} / {{ totalTime | date:'HH:mm:ss':'+0000' }} {{ currentTime | date:'mm:ss':'+0000' }} / {{ totalTime | date:'mm:ss':'+0000' }} {{cue.title}}
Add to WatchlistRemove from Watchlist
Add to watchlist
Remove from watchlist

Video unavailable

Opening to "Humor"By Charles Atlas with Margaret Cho

In the opening segment of “Humor” created by Charles Atlas, comedian Margaret Cho takes on the task of educating her audience about the subtleties of humor. Unfortunately for her model pupil, Bruce, the subject of her lecture is not comedy but antiquated medicine.

Surrounded by anatomical diagrams, Cho uses Aristotle’s Theory of the Four Humors as her source material. Cho diagnoses Bruce with an excess of Blood, and covers his head with gummy worm “leeches” while praising, stone-faced, the virtues of bloodletting as a remedy.

More information

Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian

Translate this video

Through the Art21 Translation Project, multilingual audiences from around the globe can contribute translations, making Art21 films more accessible worldwide.

Licensing

Interested in showing this film in an exhibition or public screening? To license this video please visit Licensing & Reproduction.

Charles Atlas

Charles Atlas is a filmmaker and video artist who has created numerous works for stage, screen, museum, and television. Atlas is a pioneer in the development of media-dance, a genre in which original performance work is created directly for the camera. Many of Atlas’s works have been collaborations with choreographers, dancers, and performers, including Yvonne Rainer, Michael Clark, Douglas Dunn, Marina Abramovic, Diamanda Galas, John Kelly, and Leigh Bowery. Atlas acted as Consulting Director for “Art in the Twenty-First Century” (Seasons 2 through 5), creating the original opening programs for each hour-long segment of Season 2, as well as supervising the “Stories,” “Loss and Desire,” “Memory,” “Play,” “Protest,” and “Paradox” episodes.


Charles Atlas

2:03
Add to watchlist

By Charles Atlas with Jane Alexander

1:49
Add to watchlist

By Charles Atlas with Merce Cunningham

1:36
Add to watchlist

By Charles Atlas with John Waters


More from "Humor"

13:20
Add to watchlist
12:59
Add to watchlist
11:11
Add to watchlist