[Beyond Modern Sculpture Download
Gifford Brickley
The beginning of modern sculpture is fascinating because it was revolutionary. It was a substantial break with tradition that launched an army of open-minds into a fury of productivity and thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness that might have been obstructed by inflexible stipulations on previously accepted methods.
Burnham began his studies in 1953 at the Boston Museum School where he studied design, silversmithing, sculpture and painting. He began a friendship with the Soviet sculptor Naum Gabo who was teaching at Harvard University at the time; he considered Gabo to be his mentor. He took two years off between 1954 and 1956 to study engineering at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, and received an associates degree in engineering.[4]
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,[6] and became chairman of their art department.[7] He was the Inaugural Fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies from 1968 to 1969.[7] During this time he distanced himself from Gabo, and also from Gyrgy Kepes notion of the "New Bauhaus", the latter because Kepes failed to embrace advanced technology and the use of computers in art. Burnham aligned himself with Oliver Selfridge and Jack Nolan, who were both computer scientists.[4]
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.[9] 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".[10][6]
Burnham was the Associate editor of Arts Magazine between the years 1968 and 1970; he also published many articles in the magazine. From 1971 to 1973 he wrote for ARTFORUM magazine as a contributing editor.[3]
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.[11] 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.[11]
Burnham was referenced in American artist Mike Kelley catalogue for his exhibition, "Mike Kelley: The Uncanny" at Tate Liverpool.[14] This exhibition featured Andy Warhol's Andy Warhol Robot.[15] Burnham speaks about the manner in which anthropomorphic figures became equivalent to traditional sculpture.
The exhibition celebrates the achievements of three giants of the era: Paul Czanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin and follows the influences they had on younger generations of French artists, on their peers and on wider circles of artists across Europe in Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels and Vienna.
With nearly a hundred works by artists ranging from Klimt and Munch, Matisse and Picasso to Mondrian and Kandinsky complemented by a selection of sculpture by artists including Rodin and Camille Claudel, the exhibition follows the creation of a new, modern art, free of convention, taking in Expressionism, Cubism and Abstraction.
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is the largest park of its kind in New England. Providing a constantly changing landscape of large-scale, outdoor, modern and contemporary sculpture and site-specific installations of more than 60 works.
Patrons of deCordova can enjoy year round activities in the Sculpture Park and Museum, including snowshoe tours, yoga in the park, nature tours, curator and artist conversations, and many special talks, screenings, and events. deCordova is also home to Lincoln Nursery School, the first preschool embedded in a contemporary art museum in the United States
There is something for everyone at deCordova. Visit ground-breaking contemporary art exhibitions and family friendly learning spaces inside the museum. Pack a picnic and spread out on 30 acres of trails, lawns, and gardens. Children will enjoy self-guided tours and scavenger hunts. Go into our app and learn about various sculpture throughout the park at your leisure or follow along with a digital tour.
Passes are released every week on Tuesday around noon for the following two weeks. Although the indoor exhibitions are on a temporary hiatus, the Park grounds, store, and caf are all open as usual.
If you are interested in setting up a group visit, please reach out to decordo...@thetrustees.org. We welcome school and youth groups for experiential educational programs. Please visit our Education Page for details.
Wheelchair Accessible Bathrooms
There are accessible bathrooms on the third floor of the museum, accessed by an elevator. The bathrooms in the courtyard are not wheelchair accessible. However, the bathrooms in the caf are wheelchair accessible.
Wheelchair Accessible Parking
There are two wheelchair accessible spots next to the front entrance of the museum. There are also a number of accessible spots in the main parking lot, for guests looking to access the store/caf or Sculpture Park.
UP Organization
DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is proud to be a designated UP organization as part of an accessibility program developed by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. UP supports the growth and development of organizations that recognize the power of inclusive design to grow audiences and enhance cultural experiences for all, and that embrace inclusivity as core to their mission.
DeCordova offers a unique backdrop of contemporary art for an unforgettable wedding in its indoor and outdoor spaces. Enjoy cocktails on the Sculpture Terrace, dinner and dancing in the galleries, or plan a tented event in the park.
Nestled in the trees above Flint Pond, this exceptional events space and sailcloth tent is the best of everything deCordova has to offer for private events. Equipped with lights, catering tent and power, the tent pad with surrounding grass provides both comfort and beauty for an ideal flow cocktail receptions into seated dinner.
While the avant-garde artist may not have invented mobiles, the world has come to refer almost exclusively to his free-moving creations. Yet several traditions prefigure his kinetic experiments. Remains of wind chimes made from bone, wood, bamboo, and shells dating as far back as 3,000 B.C. have been found throughout Southeast Asia. Their clanging, a superstitious belief held, could keep evil spirits away (although the Chinese were the first to appreciate the musical and artistic properties of the wind chime, around 1,100 B.C.). The Ancient Romans produced similar objects called tintinnabula. Some peculiar examples feature phallic designs that promised to bring good luck. Traditional Scandinavian Christmas ornaments called himmeli (developed hundreds of years ago) resemble voluminous diamonds or other geometric forms. Originally created from thin reeds or straw, modern-day interpretations often employ metal. The Finnish hung himmeli above their tables to usher in a bountiful crop season. Now, Brooklyn millennials are more likely to use the structures to hang air plants.
In 1920, Man Ray assembled 63 wood coat hangers in a pyramid-like formation, dangling the whole thing from the ceiling by a wire. The individual elements in the work, which he called Obstruction, appear to multiply row by row, resembling a three-dimensional family tree. As a member of the Surrealist movement, Man Ray was interested in exposing the uncanny in the everyday. In Obstruction, he transformed mundane home goods into sculpture, further defamiliarizing the objects by hanging them from the ceiling. As the work casts a shadow over viewers below, its mass becomes ominous, tinged with a dark humor.
What would modern sculpture be without Constantin Brncuși? Certainly, an entirely different one. After all, the Romanian sculptor (born in 1876) was truly a pioneer of modern sculpture. He turned away from traditional art and bypassed reality with his minimalist aesthetic.
In his modular, abstract works, Srgio de Camargo also explores the relationship between the work and the viewer, but also between light and space. His sculptures are characterized above all by their geometric forms and the use of light marble (although he also created a number of sculptures in black Belgian marble).
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1930, Camargo spent much of his life in Europe. While studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, he was inspired by the works of Brncuși.2 Because like Brncuși, Camargo also shared a similar understanding of space and placement in his sculptures: Both understood their works as part of the space in which they were placed and that this relationship was part of their meaning and expressiveness. See more of his works in this article.
Just like Michael Croissant, the German sculptor Hans Steinbrenner (1928-2008) also focused on the reduction of the human form. In the mid-1950s, he met Brncuși in Paris and discovered an inspiring force in his work.4 In the years that followed, he developed an increasingly reduced formal language.
Spanish artist Enric Mestre, born in 1936, is dedicated to the development of ceramic sculpture as a distinct art form. He began his artistic career with painting and studied at the San Carlos Fine Arts School before deepening his passion for ceramics.
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