Ian Burn
Born 1939, Geelong, Victoria. Lived and worked in Sydney, New South Wales.
Recipient of 2018 MCA and Tate International Joint Acquisition Program for contemporary Australian Art
Selected exhibitions
2018
IN-Formalism, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney
Systematically Altered Photographs, Milani Gallery, Brisbane
In site: Process, Performance, Documentation, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane\
The Field Revisited, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Painting Amongst Other Things, Australian National Capital Artists Gallery, Canberra
2017
Less than, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane
2016
Sugar Spin: You, me, art and everything, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
A Device for Measuring, Milani Gallery, Brisbane
1969: The Blackbox of Conceptual Art, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
Conceptual Art in Britain 1964–1979, Tate Britain, London
2015
Propositions Part Three, Milani Gallery, Brisbane
1969: The Blackbox of Conceptual Art, Queensland University of Technology Art Museum, Brisbane
London Works, Milani Gallery, Brisbane
Hotel Theory, REDCAT, Los Angeles
Writing Art, Artspace, Sydney
2014-15
Remain in Light: Photography from the Collections, Museum of Contemporary Art touring exhibition, Ipswich Art
Gallery, Ipswich; Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo; Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland; Bendigo Art
Gallery, Bendigo; Artspace Mackay, Mackay; and Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor
2013
Xerography, Firstsite, Colchester, Essex
Reinventing the Wheel: The Readymade Century, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
NEW 2013, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
1969: The Black Box of Conceptual Art, University of Sydney Art Museum, Sydney
Born to Concrete, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane
Minimal/Conceptual, Milani Gallery, Brisbane
2012
Propositions, Milani Gallery, Brisbane
Materialising ‘Six Years’: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York
Less is More: Minimal and Post-minimal art in Australia, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
Volume One: MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2010
Change, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
100 Years: Highlights from the University of Queensland Art Collection, University of Queensland Art Museum,
Brisbane
Cubism & Australian Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
2009
Mirror Mirror: Then and now, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
2006
Multiplicity: Prints and Multiples from the Collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art and the University of
Wollongong, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Wild Thang: Post-Pop from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Albury Regional Art Gallery, Albury
The Second Hand, Bellas Milani Gallery, Brisbane
2005
1967: Selected works from the MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2002
Office Display, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
1999
MCA Collection: Violent Landscapes, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
1995-96
1965–75: reconsidering the object of art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
A blast from the past, Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong
1995
Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1968, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
1993
Donation Vicky Remy I, une idee of l’art dans les années 70, la rigueur et la rupture, Musee d’Art Moderne de
Saint-Etienne, France
Out of sight, out of mind, Lisson Gallery, London
Looking at seeing and reading, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Australian
Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Collaborations, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
A different view, Queensland regional galleries
1992
Ian Burn: minimal-conceptual work 1965-1970, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Monash University Gallery,
Melbourne; Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, Hobart (1993); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
(1993)
1991
Off the wall in the air: a seventies selection, Monash University Gallery and Australian Centre for Contemporary
Art, Melbourne
1990
8th Biennale of Sydney: the readymade boomerang, Sydney
Now see hear!, Wellington City Art Gallery, Wellington
1989
Prints & Australia: pre-settlement to present, Australian National Gallery (now National Gallery of Australia),
Canberra
Art & Language (1966–1974), Galerie Sylvana Lorenz, Paris
L’internationale situationiste 1957–1972, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Inside the Greenhouse, Tinsheds Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney
L’Art Conceptuel, une perspective, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Fondation Caja de
Pensiones, Madrid; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; and Musee d’Art Contemporain, Montreal
1988
Survey, Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane
Towers of torture, Tinsheds Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney
1987
In print: Vol 1: artists books, Power Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sydney
1986
Close remarks, Artspace, Sydney
1983
A Melbourne mood: cool contemporary art, Australian National Gallery (now National Gallery of Australia),
Canberra
1980
Printed art: a view of two decades, Museum of Modern Art, New York
1977
Words, a look at the use of language in art 1967–1977, Whitney Museum, New York
Illusion and reality, touring exhibition, Australian National Gallery (now National Gallery of Australia), Canberra and
toured to state galleries
1976
Drawing now, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Minimal Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Music-language, Eric Fabre Gallery, Paris
New work, New York, UCLA Gallery, Los Angeles
Music-language, John Weber Gallery, New York and Venice Biennale, Venice
Plane/Zeichnungen/Diagramme, Galerie Paul Mainz, Cologne
1975
Art & Language: New York <––> Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and Art Gallery of South
Australia, Adelaide
Group show, John Weber Gallery, New York
Twenty from SoHo, Grey Gallery, New York University, New York
Shouting Man posters, Kolner Kunstmarkt, Cologne; Galleria Foksal, Warsaw; and Student Cultural Centre,
Belgrade
Performance, documents, film, video, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1974
77 sentences, Galerie Schema, Florence
Kunst uber Kunst: Werke und Theorien eine Ausstellung in drei Teilen (Art on art), Kolnischer Kunstverein,
Cologne
13 Projekt ’74 artists, Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne
Summer group show, John Weber Gallery, New York
Projekt ’74, Cologne Museum, Cologne
1973
The Art & Language Institute, Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne
Annotations, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris
Art and its cultural context, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium
Einige wesentliche Beispiele früher Konzeptueller Kunst analytischen Charakters (Some early analytic Conceptual
art), Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne
Index 02, Lisson Gallery, London
Dourly 11.7.73, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium
Comparative models, Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne
Contemporanea, Rome
Recent Australian art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Index 002 Bxal, John Weber Gallery, New York
1972
Comparative models, Galerie Daniel Templon, Milani
ALEA, Pamplona, Spain
Index 01, Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany
Documenta memorandum (indexing), Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne and Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris
1971
45º30’N – 73º36’W, Sir George Williams University, Montreal
Projected art, Finch College Museum, New York
Collected works, Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne (with Mel Ramsden)
The boardwalk show, Protetch-Rivkin, Atlantic City, New Jersey
The situation now: object or post-object art, Contemporary Art Society, Sydney
Septime Biennale des Jeunes, Parc Floral de Paris, Paris
Taped lectures, Dain Gallery, New York
Arte concettuale, Galleria Daniel Templon, Milan
1970
Conceptual Art and conceptual aspects, New York Cultural Center, New York
Art in the mind, Allen Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio
Information, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Concept-theorie, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris
1969
Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne (with Mel Ramsden and Roger Cutforth)
1968
The Field, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
1966
Young Melbourne painters, Rudy Komon Gallery, Sydney
1964
Young Minds, Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne
1963-64
Various group exhibitions, Argus Gallery and Gallery A, Melbourne
NOTE: Most of the work for exhibitions between 1969 – 1977 was created collaboratively with Mel Ramsden or collectively as Art & Language, and thus exhibited as such.
Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Musee d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne, France
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne