Looking for something with which to stay busy or distracted, I decided to record a reading of the brochure for Scott Burton’s 1989 Artist’s Choice exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, in which Burton rather boldly reconsidered the bases and pedestals of Constantin Brancusi’s sculptures.
The kicker for anyone who got to the end of the mp3 was to be the last paragraph on the back of the brochure, where it explained that Burton installed some of Brancusi’s Birds on pedestal tables of his own design, and also created seating and brochure holders for the exhibition.
Well, between the untraceable static that appeared in the tracks with the computer-generated voice, my attempts to re-record the tainted sections by reading them myself in a breathy ASMR-style voice, and the jarring editing process in an app I really don’t like, and finally the way these two voices only serve to compound anxiety rather than alleviate it, I’m shelving the whole thing.
Read Burton’s brochure yourself. You shouldn’t need me to tell you It’s been on MoMA’s website since like 2017. Anyway, what I’d rather hear is Anne Umland’s take on this exhibit, which she organized while an assistant to Kirk Varnedoe.
Artist’s Choice | Burton on Brâncuși, Apr 7 – July 4, 1989 [moma]