“Scott Burton, Pamela Jenrette December 6 – 27, 1975.” Scott Burton, Pamela Jenrette. Artist Space Exhibitions. Web. 09 May 2017.

The artist Scott Burton was born in Greensboro, Alabama in 1939, and was raised by his single mother in the town of Eutaw, Alabama[1]. He attended a number of colleges on the east coast of the United States, most notably Harvard and Columbia where he received his bachelor’s degree. Originally, Burton had aspirations of being a writer after his graduation from Columbia University in New York City, but after finding himself immersed in the art scene with companions such as John Perreault, Vito Acconci, and Eduardo Costa[2], his desire to create performative and conceptual art won out. Burton would originally take old furniture from the street and set it up for a performances, or to take photographs of it in unexpected places (Image 1). He liked the idea of interacting with commonly known objects such as household chairs, as can be seen in his later works, wherein he started sculpting interactive furniture art pieces. His art career began during the 1950s but he began to use furniture in his art around 1970, as exhibited in image 1[3], a set of polaroids from an exhibition with artist Pamela Jenrette. Although his focus was mainly performance art, Burton’s views shifted around 1978 to a preoccupation with furniture creation and design.

 By 1977, Burton had booked his first exhibition of sculpture, Pragmatic Structures at the Droll/Kolbert Gallery[4], and was included in the 1984 International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture at the MOMA. In addition to the piece installed on Western’s campus, Burton has also had a number of exhibitions at museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the School of the Art Institute Chicago[5], and the at Paul Kasmin gallery in Los Angeles[6]. These works as a whole represented a return to Burton’s preoccupations with concepts of design as art, as most of the works are chairs or other furniture items- benches, tables, and other household objects. In addition to his collections made of granite and other stone, he also created works that played with concepts of space and structure, as evidenced through works such as Onyx Table. In this piece, he integrates fluorescent lighting into his work, adding another layer to a piece that reflects design in unexpected ways in the modern age.

Scott Burton, Onyx Table. 1978-81. Onyx marble, steel, and fluorescent lights.

 The subject of seating and furniture in public art became prominent movement in the 1970’s, wherein artists made a conscious effort to make art more accessible to a public who viewed modern art and public sculpture as unintelligible eyesores. Artists like Burton were concerned with the amalgamation of art and design as setting the stage for public life. Burton, along with artists like Douglas Hollis and George Sugarman, returned to the timeless idea of the chair for the majority of their careers, creating a living archive of work at beaches, in front of office buildings, and on college campuses across the country. This truly promotes the idea that art is not created in a vacuum, and the work of Burton is no different from the rest of the art world in this way- he was directly connected to the context in which his art was created, and the context of his life.

 

 

Contributors

Ryan Edson

Kaela Thuney

Jennifer Giovanetti

References

 

Burton, Scott. Performance, Individual Behavior Tableaux. 1980. Berkley Art Museum,
     archive.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/32. Accessed 20 Apr. 2017.
—. Two-Part Chairs. Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/EAD/Burtonf.
     Accessed 22 Apr. 2017.
Flood, Richard. “Scott Burton.” Walker Art Center, www.walkerart.org/collections/artists/
     scott-burton. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.
Top 20 Things That Happened in 1980. Written by Nadia Noir, CBS Los Angeles.

Burton, Scott. Onyx Table. 1978-81. Onyx Table, www.moma.org/collection/works/
     82031?locale=en. Accessed 8 May 2017.

“Scott Burton – Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia.” Alchetron.com. January 18, 2014. Accessed May 09, 2017. https://alchetron.com/Scott-Burton-815553-W#-.

   Harriet Senie, Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy, New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print. 

 Miwon Kwon, “Sitings of Public Art: Integration versus Intervention”, MIT Press (2002): 1-39. Web. 23 Apr. 2017.

 “Scott Burton Papers in The Museum of Modern Art Archives Burton”, MoMA. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

 AIDS, Visual. “Scott Burton.” Visual AIDS. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
                                               

[1]  “Scott Burton Papers in The Museum of Modern Art Archives Burton.” MoMA. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

[2]  Harriet Senie, Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy, New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print. 172.

[3] “Scott Burton, Pamela Jenrette December 6 – 27, 1975.” Scott Burton, Pamela Jenrette. Artist Space Exhibitions. Web. 09 May 2017.

[4]“Scott Burton Papers in The Museum of Modern Art Archives Burton.” MoMA. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

[5]“Scott Burton.” The Art Institute of Chicago. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2017.

[6] Gallery, Paul Kasmin. “Scott Burton.” Paul Kasmin Gallery | Artsy. N.p., 11 May 2015. Web. 09 May 2017.