Susan Inglett Gallery and Brendan Fernandes invite you to a conversation between artists Brendan Fernandes and Michael Harwood, moderated by curator Jeremy Johnston, in coordination with Brendan Fernandes' upcoming exhibition Duet. On view from 4 September - 11 October 2025, Duet is directly inspired by Scott Burton's landmark performance works of the early 1970s.
Burton's performance work challenged expectations and the assumed structures of sculpture, theater, actor, and audience, all of which are present in the photographic works and soft sculpture installations of Fernandes' exhibition. Burton's Behavior Tableaux works utilized a variety of distancing effects, timing, and controlled movements derived from interpersonal signaling and body language to alter the audience's relationship to one another and the stage.
Michael Harwood performed in Burton's Group Behavior Tableaux at the Whitney Museum of Art in 1972. Given that the film/video documentation of this event has been lost, along with the tragic loss of Scott Burton in 1989, Michael remains one of the few primary resources for information about these performances, their rehearsal process, and reception.
Brendan Fernandes interprets the themes prevalent in these works by Burton, all of which are present in his own practice, highlighting the body, queerness, and nonverbal methods of communication.
We will learn from each artist regarding their experiences with Burton’s work, along with their individual approaches to performance and photography.
Brendan Fernandes is an internationally recognized artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Based in Chicago, Fernandes' projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Committed to creating new spaces and new forms of agency, Fernandes' projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance party, part protest . . . to foster collaboration and solidarity through actions of generosity and kindness.
Michael Harwood is a photographer based in New York City. Well-known for his series of porno-satirical collages that exploited covert homoeroticism in mass market magazine ads, and were exhibited in the seminal "It's a Gender Show" by Group Material in 1981. Hardwood's photographs often present male models, posed naked in the rooms, hallways and the kitchen of his rambling Chelsea apartment. The photographs have been exhibited and published extensively. These photographic works have been informed by his time as an actor and close connection with both Jerzy Grotowski and Charles Ludlam. Grotowski’s theory of Poor Theater and his emphasis on the role of physical impulse in the creative act, and Ludlam’s gay gaze and his embrace of the Ridiculous are the touchstones of his practice along with the mentorship of artist and friend Thomas Lanigan Schmidt.
Jeremy Johnston is a founding member of Darling Green, a collaborative curatorial practice, which has worked with the United Nations, Bard Graduate Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, Museum for African Art, Performa, and the American Folk Art Museum. He is Curator of the Equitable Art Collection and a core faculty member of the The Interdisciplinary Art and Theory program. In addition, Johnston serves on the Scott Burton Advisory Committee at the Museum of Modern Art.
Darling Green is a collaborative curatorial practice, developing collections, exhibitions, and publications through open dialogues, privileging process over predetermined frameworks. As the current stewards of Scott Burton’s 1986 public sculpture, Atrium Furnishment, Darling Green has had an ongoing interest in Burton’s legacy, with an emphasis on the precarity and preservation of his public artworks. They have organized and participated in exhibitions, discussions, and lectures on Burton, including Re: Scott Burton’s Atrium Furnishment (2023, Soft Network, NYC) and Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (2024, Sculpture Center, NYC). In addition, Darling Green organizes Telephone Telephone, a regular meeting to discuss the meanings, uses, and methodologies of art exhibitions.
