Jack Burnham
Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 – February 25, 2019) was an American writer and theorist of 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.[2]
For the English cricketer, see Jack Burnham (cricketer). For the English footballer, see Jack Burnham (footballer).
Jack Burnham
November 11, 1931
February 25, 2019 (aged 87)
Art historian
Systems theory in contemporary art
Fellow, MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, 1968-9
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1973[1]
Systems theory, art and technology
"Systems Esthetics"
"Beyond Modern Sculpture"
Between the years of 1955 and 1965, he created sculptures many of which incorporated light.[3]
Biography[edit]
Burnham was in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the Cold War from 1949 to 1952, stationed at Fort Belvoir, working in the drafting school.
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]
Burnham received a BFA from the Yale School of Art in 1959 and a MFA in 1961.[5]
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 György 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]
In the 1980s he moved to the University of Maryland[6] and again chaired the art and art history departments.[4]
Retiring in the 1990s, Burnham lived in Hyattsville, Maryland, immersed in Kabbalah.[8]
Work as a writer[edit]
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]
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 precursor to contemporary digital art.[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]