Guzzler
Jan 17, 2023, 11:30 PM (2 days ago)
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Guzzler is pleased to present Ian Burn: four paintings and a drawing exercise, 1956–1961, a selection of works from the artist’s brother Robert Burn’s house in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Ian Burn is best known for his involvement in the transatlantic conceptual art collective Art & Language, but these early works are grounded in the traditional genres (landscape, still life, portrait) prior to his encounter with modernism in the early 1960s. The exhibition conveys a sense of Burn’s art leading up to and during his studies at the National Gallery, Melbourne through his sibling’s collection; in this way, it contextualises Guzzler’s 2022 presentation of Burn’s National Gallery Travelling Scholarship Prize Entry, 1962, a significant painting also loaned to the gallery by Robert Burn. Building on this Ian Burn: four paintings and a drawing exercise, 1956–1961 sketches a provincial pre-history of conceptual art, one in which the movement’s critique of artistic modes of production and display are revealed in the antiquated forms and pedagogical tools that the movement subsequently claimed to render obsolete.

 

The exhibition will run from Wednesday 18 until Tuesday 24 January. The opening will be held 3–5pm this Saturday 21 January.