Ian Burn (29 December 1939 – 29 September 1993) was an Australian

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

ist. He was a member of the Art and Language group that flourished in the 1970s. Ian Burn was also an art writer,

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

, and

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...

Biography

Ian Burn was born on 29 December 1939 in Geelong, Australia. Burn studied art at the National Gallery Art School in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. He became affiliated with the Art and Language collective when he moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1964 and remained a part of the group when he moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1967. In 1977, Burn returned to Australia to teach at Sydney University. Ian Burn

drowned Drowning is a type of suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where others present are either unaware of the victim's situation or unable to offer as ...

on 29 September 1993 while swimming in rough seas at Bawley Point,

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Notable work

" Xerox Book", 1968 - 100

iterative Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration. ...

copies of a blank sheet of white

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...

on a

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

720, arranged in a book in the order they were created. The final pages in the series of copies were filled with black forms that had arisen slowly from the 'error' of the machine. In 1969 Ian Burn, Roger Cutforth and Mel Ramsden proposed one of the first Australian exhibitions of conceptual art, shown at

Pinacotheca A pinacotheca (Latin borrowing from grc, πινακοθήκη, pinakothēkē = grc, πίναξ, pinax, (painted) board, tablet, label=none + grc, θήκη, thēkē, box, chest, label=none) was a picture gallery in either ancient Greece or anc ...

to which they posted the entire contents of their exhibition in a small box. Ramsden had studied with Burn at the National Gallery School and was included in '' The Field''.

References

External links

Ian Burn's works
at the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

Ian Burn's works
at the Art Gallery of New South Wales * *

– A gallery of Ian Burn's art. 1939 births 1993 deaths Australian conceptual artists Australian contemporary artists Deaths by drowning in Australia Accidental deaths in New South Wales Art & Language People from Geelong 20th-century Australian artists Australian expatriates in England Australian expatriates in the United States University of Sydney faculty Artists from Victoria (Australia) National Gallery of Victoria Art School alumni {{Australia-artist-stub