Victor Burgin

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Victor Burgin was born in 1941 in Sheffield, England, and lives in Somerset, England, as well as in Paris. He studied painting at the Royal College of Art in London and at Yale University.

The artist and theorist first achieved critical acclaim in the late 60s as one of the founders of conceptual art in itself, as works of his were on display at important exhibitions such as “Live in Your Head: When Attitudes become Form” (1969) and “Information” (1970). As of the 70s Burgin created mainly photographic series in which he combined images from advertising and print media with text. In the early 90s, he finally turned to the digital video art, which he approached from a photographic perspective to explore the relationship between stasis and movement. Currently, the artist focuses on 3D computer modeling.

The art historian, Stephen Bann, observes in Burgin’s more recent works: “This progressive application of the new technology in itself is quite uninteresting compared with the remarkable continuity in the topics discussed and ideas of the work.” (Stephen Bann, Victor Burgin’s Critical Topography, in: Relocating, Arnolfini, 2002).

Victor Burgin was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1986. Among his most significant, theoretical written works are: Interviews and Interventions About Art (2011), Situational Aesthetics (2009), The Remembered Film (2004), In/Different Spaces: Place and Memorys In Visual Culture (1996), The End of Art Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity (1986), as well as Thinking Photography (1996). Many public collections, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Los Angeles County Museum in Los Angeles, the Tate Modern, London, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris include his work.