David Getsy

Lecture alert! Wed. Feb 25th, I'll be giving a talk I've been working on for many months: "The Magic Hype: Andy Warhol and Trans Visibility in the 1970s" at the Dia Foundation in Chelsea. In coordination, Dia will have three days of screenings of Warhol films.

diaart.org/program/cale...

Fri 1/23/26 NYC: at the "Locating Downtown" conference (NYU+Whitney). I'll be talking about Stephen Varble's "Costume Tours of New York," returning to this research for my new book project on the queer street in 1970s performance. Registration required but free.

nyu.manifoldapp.org/projects/loc...

Later this month, I'll be in Vienna to give a few talks, including this one at MUMOK on the 29th of January, a research seminar for the University of Vienna, and a symposium for the Ludwig Foundation exhibition (event hosted by MUMOK).

www.mumok.at/en/calendar/...

www.mumok.at/en/calendar/...

This article took 8 years to write & revise, but it's out now in _American Art_. In many ways, it encapsulates my thoughts on Scott Burton's work of the 80s, and it's 2nd of 3 essays on the decade (final out in a journal next year) that could have been a vol.2 to my book.
doi.org/10.1086/738511

[New pub. alert] My essay on Alex Da Corte charts the queer and other experiences that inform his epic 2018 film. Alex was generous in our conversations and in trusting me with the responsibility of talking about this work in a different, more personal way.

static1.squarespace.com/static/5d40a...

Lecture: Public Affections—The Revelations of Scott Burton's Last Works | The Art Institute of Chicago What does it mean for an artist to embed his lived queer experience into everyday objects? Join David J. Getsy, author of Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art (2022), for a discussion of t...

Chicago in October! Advanced notice: the Scott Burton exhibition is traveling to Wrightwood 659, and on October 9th I will be giving a revelatory lecture at The Art Institute of Chicago in relation to the show.
www.artic.edu/events/6222/...

Five Oberlin Alumni Earn 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships | Oberlin College and Conservatory Five Oberlin alumni have been awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships.

Yay Oberlin! That place made me who I am, and I'm particularly honored to be alongside my fellow art history classmate (and Patricia Mathews mentee!) Libby Otto!
www.oberlin.edu/news/five-ob...

I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow! Thank you all #guggfellows2025

www.gf.org/stories/anno...

YouTube video by Power Institute David Getsy: Unnatural Relations—Queer Abstraction and the Intercourse of Forms in Contemporary Art

Recording of Dec 2024 talk at the MCA Australia on 3 artists I’ve been thinking about for a long time re: #queerabstraction: Harmony Hammond, Lula Mae Blocton, & Felix Gonzalez-Torres. They've featured in my surveys before, but here I go into depth on key works. Plus some Australian examples!

David J. Getsy and Tom Burr on Scott Burton RSVP This conversation highlights convergences and differences in queer understandings of artist Scott Burton’s (1939–1989) writing, performance, and sculpture from the late 1960s through the late ...

Next month, on Feb 27, I will be with the fabulous TOM BURR at SculptureCenter in NYC, where we will have a public conversation about cruising as method, Scott Burton, Álvaro Urbano's exhibition, and of course Tom's beautiful and sharp work.
www.sculpture-center.org/events/14266...

Scott Burton’s Civic Engagement and Eroticism Merge at the Pulitzer Paradigm-shifter for public art in the ’80s, groundbreaking (and openly queer) performance artist in the ’70s, Burton showed new ways of connecting.

Good @nytimes.com review of #scottburton exh, but it misquotes my claim that the "sculptures perform as furniture." (inverted in the review) There is a difference. Maybe this just matters to me, but it's key to the works' complexity and their roots in queer experience
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/a...

December 13th in Sydney, I'll be giving a talk for the Power Institute and the MCA Australia. With Julie Mehretu exhibition on view, I'll be revisiting some of my work on queer abstraction (but with a focus on artists like Lula Mae Blocton and Harmony Hammond)

powerinstitute.org.au/events/unnat...

Dr. David J. Getsy Lecture on Scott Burton The Pulitzer welcomes Dr. David J. Getsy for a public lecture on Scott Burton’s Public Sculpture and the Knowledge of AIDS. Known for his sculptures and groundbreaking performance art, Scott Burton’s ...

If you are in St. Louis next week (on 11/20), I'll be giving a talk at the Pulitzer Foundation in relation to the exhibition "Scott Burton: Shape Shift." My focus will be on how Burton's sculptures thematized key experiences of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. pulitzerarts.org/events/david...

Scott Burton Left His Legacy to MoMA. Today’s He’s Almost Forgotten. Scott Burton, one of America’s leading sculptors, entrusted his estate to the museum in 1989, when he was sick with AIDS, to ensure his place in art history. It turned out to be a bad idea.

I've always wanted to be part of a band... "Decades later, an unlikely band of curators, scholars, and artists — many of whom never knew Burton personally — have become so invested in him that they are refusing to let his work fade into obscurity." #scottburton
www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/a...

On 6/13, I'll be in Montréal for a public dialogue with Théo Bignon about his fantastic exhibition at the Centre CLARK, featuring meticulously embroidered memory-images of queer connections, cruising sites, and the residue of the possibility of others. centreclark.com/en/exhibitio...

NYC Friday 12/15, 7pm, at Artists Space NYC I'll be giving a talk in recognition of the Dedalus Foundation's Robert Motherwell Book Award for 'Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art' (Chicago, 2022). Free and open to public.
artistsspace.org/programs/lec...

art.as.virginia.edu/mapping-art-...
On Mon, 12/4, I'll be doing a public interview of the always charming and ever insightful Steven Nelson at the Lindner Center for Art History at UVA. (regionals: it's worth the trip!) We'll be talking about what motivates writing—and the field.

In recognition of the Robert Motherwell Book Award for my "Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art," I'll be giving a lecture at Artists Space in NYC on December 15th at 7pm. Sponsored by Dedalus Foundation.

'll be giving a talk at Stanford on Thursday 11/17 if you're in the San Francisco area and so inclined... art.stanford.edu/events/weint...