Bench and Table
Scott Burton (1939–1989)
Designed 1988
Installed 1991
Carved and polished granite
Bench: 19 x 52 x 26 in. (48.3 x 132.1 x 66 cm)
Table: 27 x 15 in. ( 71.1 x 38.1 cm)
Located in the Smart Museum of Art’s Vera and A. D. Elden Sculpture Garden
5550 S. Greenwood Avenue
Purchase, Gift of The Smart Family Foundation in honor of Vera and A.D. Elden, 1991.255a–b
“[Scott Burton] definitely was half in love with gravity. He liked to lie down. He liked to sit. Not for no reason was he the best sculptor the world has known of places to sit down.”
Peter Schjeldahl, “Scott Burton: The Concrete Work”
Scott Burton integrates physical experience into his sculptures. His philosophy that a sculpture’s value lies in the user’s experience of the artwork is above all evident in his “pragmatic structures”—often colloquially called “furniture sculptures”—which he produced from 1970 until his death in 1989. Burton’s goal was to create public art with a democratizing thrust. He wanted his art to be inclusive, as accessible as possible to audiences from many different backgrounds rather than simply to the wealthy patrons of art galleries. His furniture pieces attest to this desire; in his words,
“The true potential importance of a new movement of artists’ decoration would be on a broader economic scale, on a public scale.”
Designed in 1988 and completed posthumously in 1991, Bench and Table is one realization of Burton’s conception of a truly public and social art. Its geometric yet familiar form allows visitors to choose how they approach the work. By playfully suggesting functionality and evoking objects of everyday use, Burton ensured that his art would be universally accessible, and the work’s location in the Smart Museum courtyard effectively elicits the reactions he desired.
The work is next to the museum café’s outdoor seating area, emphasizing its functional value as another seating option during someone’s lunch break, yet its proximity to the “normal” tables and chairs also draws attention to its status as art, interfering with its life as a functional object. Its hard granite material also defies its name, signifying an intimate eating experience while rejecting the expected comfort of that idea. Burton ultimately intended his furniture sculptures to be interpreted simultaneously as common, relatable objects, and as works of art, continuously complicating a viewer’s interaction with the sculpture.
Artist profile
Scott Burton
(American, 1939-1989)
Biography
American sculptor and performance artist Scott Burton was born in Greensboro, Alabama in 1939. As an adolescent, he studied art with the painter Leon Berkowitz in Washington, D.C. and with Hans Hofmann in Massachusetts, before moving to New York in 1959 to complete his bachelor of arts degree (magna cum laude) at Columbia University in 1962. In 1963, he earned a master’s degree in English literature from New York University, and for the next decade he devoted himself to theater. In the early 1970s, he turned to performance and conceptual art, whereupon he began building his reputation as a provocative artist.
He became known for his series of Behavior Tableaux (1972), in which silent actors on a stage eighty feet from the audience moved slowly around abandoned pieces of furniture. His chair sculptures, the first of which was Bronze Chair (1972), emerged from his performance art. Inspired by Russian Constructivist principles and the works of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi, these pieces characterized his artistic practice for the rest of his career. Like his Behavior Tableaux, his furniture sculptures explored the relationships between people and objects and played with notions of performativity in public space. Burton died of complications from AIDS in 1989 at the age of 50.
Sources
Burton, Scott. Artist Statement. Design Quarterly 122 (1983): 10-11.
David Getsy (Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History and Interim Dean of Graduate Studies, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago), Interview, May 20, 2015.
Scott Burton. Edited by Brenda Richardson. Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1987. Exhibition catalog.
Scott Burton: Collected Writings on Art & Performance, 1965-1975. Edited by David J. Getsy. Chicago: Soberscove Press, 2012.
Scott Burton: the Concrete Work. Edited by Peter Schjeldahl. New York: Max Protetch Gallery, 1992. Exhibition catalog.
Archival Materials
Design sketches of Burton’s sculpture, 1988
Source: The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
“Scott Burton’s Sculpture Bench and Table To Be Installed At The Smart Museum Of Art On 7 June 1991” (press release from the Smart Museum, May 1991)
Source: The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
Photograph of the sculpture’s installation in 1991
Source: The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
Further Reading
Rondeau, James E. “Bronze Chair, Designed 1972, Cast 1975 by Scott Burton.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 25.1 (1999): 46-47.
Smart Collecting: Acquisitions 1990-2004, Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary. Edited by Kimberly Rorschach. Chicago: The Smart Museum of Art, 2004.