Jack Burnham

For the English cricketer, see Jack Burnham (cricketer). For the English footballer, see Jack Burnham (footballer).

Jack Burnham
Born	November 11, 1931
Died	February 25, 2019(2019-02-25) (aged 87)
Occupation	Art historian
Known for	Systems theory in contemporary art
Awards	Fellow, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, 1968-9 Guggenheim Fellowship, 1973
Academic background
Alma mater	Yale School of Art
Academic work
Institutions	Northwestern University University of Maryland
Main interests	Systems theory, art and technology
Notable works	"Systems Esthetics" "Beyond Modern Sculpture"

Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 - February 25, 2019) was an American writer on art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland. He is one of the main forces behind the emergence of systems art in the 1960s.

Biography

Burnham received a BFA from the Yale School of Art in 1959 and a MFA in 1961.

From 1955 until 1965 he worked as a sculptor, often created sculptures that included light. In the 1960s he started teaching art history at Northwestern University, and became chairman of their art department. He was the Inagural Fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies from 1968 to 1969. In the 1980s he moved to the University of Maryland and again chaired the art and art history departments.

Retiring in the 1990s, Burnham lived in Hyattsville, Maryland, immersed in Kabbalah.

Work as an art historian

Jack Burnham worked as a writer, and in the 1960s and 1970s made important contributions as an art theorist, critic and curator in the field of systems art. In systems art the concept and ideas of process related systems and systems theory are involved in the work to take precedence over traditional aesthetic object related and material concerns. Burnham named Systems art in the 1968 Artforum article "System Esthetics": "He had investigated the effects of science and technology on the sculpture of this century, and saw a dramatic contrast between the handling of the place-oriented object sculpture and the extreme mobility of Systems sculpture".

In 1970, he curated the exhibition at the Jewish Museum, "Software – Information Technology: Its New Meaning for Art". The exhibition included work by Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke, Nam June Paik and others. The exhibition is considered one of the most important on the history of technology and art, and a precurser to contemporary digital art.

In 1973, Burnham was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to study the alchemical symbolism used in Marcel Duchamp's art. Following that, he continued to apply Kabbalistic interpretations of art thoroughout his life, and taught it as an art critical method at the University of Maryland. As an art historian Burnham argued that aesthetics must be held to new criteria; for example, he believed that art went beyond pure visual pleasure, or the art object's function in the gallery marketplace. He suggested that art and aesthetics were relavatory, and that art could operate as an "information-processing device", similar to machines or ritual, and that artworks could function as an apparatus between natural phenomena and cultural phenomena.

Work as an artist

Burnham also produced art during his lifetime, including alchemy-imspired diagramatic drawings, sculptures and works that incorporated light. A work from 1982 included viewer-activated technolgy and luminous "ribbons". During a fellowship at MIT, Burnham created a series of sculptures including Tape Light (1969).

Publications

Burnham wrote two books and dozens of articles in magazines like: Art and Artists magazine, Arts and Society, Artforum magazine, Arts magazine. His books:

• 1968, Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This Century, New York: George Braziller; London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press.
• 1969, Art in the Marcusean Analysis, vol 6 of the "Penn State Papers in Art Education", edited by Paul Edmonston (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University, 1969).
• 1973, The Structure of Art, Revised Edition, Brazillera, ISBN 0-8076-0595-6.
• 1974, Great Western Salt Works: Essays on the Meaning of Post-Formalist Art, New York: George Braziller. 0-8076-0740-1.
• 2015, Dissolve into Comprehension: Writings and Interviews, 1964–2004, edited by Melissa Ragain (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2015), ISBN 9780262029278.

About Jack Burnham

• Robert Horvitz (2000–), "A Node for Jack Burnham".
• Charlie Gere, Art, Time and Technology: Histories of the Disappearing Body (2005) Berg, pp. 124–138
• Matthew Rampley (2005). Systems Aesthetics: Burnham and Others. In: Vector e-zine. issue B-12, January 2005.
• Corrine Robins (1972). Burnham's Burden: Art is Over...Again in Art in America. March 1972, pp. 14–15.
• Edward A. Shanken (1998). "The House That Jack Built: Jack Burnham's Concept of Software as a Metaphor for Art". In: Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Vol. 6, No. 10 (November 1998).
• Edward A. Shanken (2001). "Art in the Information Age: Technology and Conceptual Art" SIGGRAPH 2001 Electronic Art and Animation Catalog, (New York: ACM SIGGRAPH, 2001): 8–15. Expanded in Leonardo 35:4 (Aug 2002).
• Edward A. Shanken (2009). "Reprogramming Systems Aesthetics: A Strategic Historiography". Proceedings of the Digital Arts and Culture Conference, 2009.
• Willoughby Sharp (1970). Willoughby Sharp Interviews Jack Burnham in Arts magazine. Vol. 45, No. 2, November 1970, pp. 21–23
• Luke Skrebowski (2006). All Systems Go: Recovering Jack Burnham's 'Systems Aesthetics. Tate Papers, Spring 2006
• Jack Burnham, Hans Haacke, Esthétique de systèmes, Emanuele Quinz (ed.), Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2015, [1]

External links

• Homepage Jack Burnham
• Interview with Jack Burnham by Lutz Dammbeck