The Midwest Art Quarterly
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St. Louis, MO
Pulitzer Arts Foundation
Scott Burton: Shape Shift
September 6, 2024–February 2, 2025
From the seventies on, Burton made a career exploiting the "idea" that furniture can be art. Inherently pedantic, as everything in the modern world is aesthetic to some degree. What’s crucial is what kind of experience something offers; Burton’s experiences are kitsch. To be sure, there are smart formal experiments — one object is a single sheet of steel, cut and folded to form a chair; the marble slabs are impeccably hewn. I'd happily live with this furniture, but as artworks they have an obtuse, academic aspect that great art transcends. Cleverness might mildly entertain, but it is not cleverness that moves the soul.
—Bret Schneider