“A sense of art history is part of the critical basis on which artists construct ‘a future’ of art. But the question is, which sense of art history will be shaping that future? Art history has always been far too important to be simply left up to art historians.”
— Ian Burn, 1985

This presentation is organised by Robert Milne and includes a work by Ian Burn from 1989, exhibited with selected publications and other documentation, to coincide with the release of the new book. The Estate of Ian Burn is represented by Milani Gallery, Meanjin/Brisbane.

Ian Burn has been described as many things: an activist, a trade-unionist, a journalist, an art critic, a curator and an art historian—and, as he once described himself in a moment of self-deprecating alienation, ‘an ex-Conceptual artist’. This volume brings together a diverse collection of Burn’s writings that reveals a probing, analytical artist who turned to language to articulate the need for ‘looking at seeing and reading’, who pursued a Marxist politics in the face of neoliberalism and who sought to occupy and transform the margins of landscape painting. The publication includes previously unpublished material and offers a prescient rethinking of art in a decentered world through what Burn called ‘peripheral vision’.

Ian Burn: COLLECTED WRITINGS 1966–1993 is edited by Ann Stephen and designed by Robert Milne, with contributions by Art & Language, Adrian Piper, Paul Wood, Allan Sekula, and Mel Ramsden.

As part of Paris Internationale 2019, 1856 presented “Everything is fine” with work by Patricia L. Boyd, Ian Burn, Lauren Burrow, and Fred Lonidier.

The work of art is possibly one of the only commodities with equal claim to both private and civic space. It is due to how artworks are embedded in our social relations that we recognise their different values: as historical artefacts, as objects of appreciation (“beautiful” or sensible to taste), political critiques, private financial investments, modes of communication, public documents of the national imaginary—the list goes on. However, the line that divides private and civic has become ever more indiscernible in recent decades—for instance, the erosion of public infrastructure and state industry, private capitalisation on culture and entertainment, the withering of the 8 hour work day, the return of 19th century work conditions, and the ongoing enclosure of our personal lives by a new technological industrialism. In response we might ask, in a reflective manner, what capacity the work of art has to represent these problems at the different points of its reception. The four artists selected here, at different times and with different methods, have asked this of their work.

Curated by Nicholas Tammens. Designed by Ziga Testen.

More on information can be found here.