Welcome to One Nice Present, the place Observer highlights a just lately opened exhibition at a museum exterior of New York Metropolis—a spot we all know and love that already receives loads of consideration.
Students debate which of the various good writers from the great period of “The Simpsons” was one of the best, however a powerful case might be made for John Swartzwelder, whom The New Yorker as soon as known as “one of many biggest comedy minds of all time.” He did write one in every of my favourite strains, anyway, from Mountain of Insanity (season 8, episode 12), for a scene wherein Mr. Burns bonds with Homer, genuinely, over their shared love of sitting in a chair. “Oh, sure, sitting,” Mr. Burns agrees. “The nice leveler. From the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn’t take pleasure in a very good sit?”
The late Scott Burton (1939-1989) would agree. A lot of the artist’s follow engaged with chairs and sitting, and a brand new present on the Pulitzer Arts Basis goals to introduce the underknown visionary—who died at 50 from an AIDS-related sickness—to the broader world. The survey options practically forty sculptures, most of that are chairs of some form, plus greater than seventy images, drawings and ephemera. A lot of this involves Missouri from the Museum of Trendy Artwork, which is house to the Scott Burton Papers.
The exhibition opens with a very good overview of his oeuvre, beginning out with one in every of his first performances in Bronze Chair (1972/75), a Queen Anne-style armchair that Burton present in his condo, forged in bronze after which positioned on a avenue in SoHo, again when the world was nonetheless a war-zone/burgeoning gallery district. That is paired with Two-Half Chair (1986/2002), which may be learn as two harmless interlocking items of granite, although it doesn’t take probably the most gutter-bound creativeness to see it as an summary illustration of two individuals in a sure place.
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Burton appeared to enjoy a sure, ahem, cheekiness. One in every of his final initiatives was a MoMA Artist’s Selection exhibition wherein he exhibited the bases of sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, seeing these as “sculptures of tables”: “the item as object however with a (supportive) function the nonfunctional works do not need.” He made his personal tables, too, after all, they usually’re as dynamic and minimalist as his chairs. Mahogany Pedestal Desk (1982) appears somewhat extra like a lantern with no flame and one wonders about stability points.
However individuals weren’t essentially supposed to make use of any of this. There’s a performative facet to all of those sculptures, even when Burton stopped doing literal performances in 1980 with Particular person Conduct Tableaux, which made the duvet of Artforum and is documented with images on the Pulitzer. That piece took its cues from physique language at bathhouses and different cruising spots, however you don’t should see a nude man hanging round any of Burton’s sculptures to see the physique that types round them. It’s our furnishings, ourselves.
“Scott Burton: Form Shift” is on view on the Pulitzer Arts Basis by way of February 2, 2025.
