A new sculpture honoring the life and work of Scott Burton—one of America’s most influential 20th-century sculptors, whose art offered both beauty and utility—is set to open to the public this week at the New York City AIDS Memorial in Manhattan.

Oscar Tuazon’s new commission for the New York City AIDS Memorial—Eternal Flame for Scott Burton—receives a spot in the Highbrow-Brilliant quadrant of New York Magazine’s “Approval Matrix.”

Annabel Keenan writes: “Tuazon, whose practice melds elements of architecture, social engagement and conceptual sculpture, first became interested in Burton’s work as an art student in New York in the 1990s. “The dual nature of his sculptures–at once publicly visible and deeply private–seemed like a secret hidden in plain sight,” Tuazon says. His commission for the Aids Memorial reimagines Burton’s landmark installation for the Sheepshead Bay fishing piers in Brooklyn.”

Slowly but surely, Scott Burton, the late American sculptor whose work bridged high design and public utility, is receiving his due. In late 2024, the survey show “Scott Burton: Shape Shift” began touring the U.S. Now, a series of benches and lamps he designed for the piers of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York, have been reimagined and will be installed in the city’s AIDS Memorial at St. Vincent’s Triangle.

In this review of new exhibitions and publications of the artist Scott Burton, writer Jarrett Earnest writes about Burton’s radical artistic vision, and mentions that “the artist Oscar Tuazon, in collaboration with…the NYC AIDS Memorial, will unveil a revitalized version of Burton’s final public work, created for the fishing piers in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in 1994—a combination of perforated steel benches, wooden ottomans, light posts, and wind vanes…”

This review of Scott Burton: Shape Shift at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis mentions Oscar Tuazon’s upcoming Scott Burton project to be installed at the New York City AIDS Memorial next autumn.

The Los Angeles-based artist Oscar Tuazon, together with the gallery Kasmin and the New York City AIDS Memorial, is breathing new life into one of Burton’s final public artworks: an array of lights, flag poles, weathervanes and ottomans on the fishing piers in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn…Tuazon plans to transform them into a new work, “Eternal Flame for Scott Burton,” which is expected to be installed at the NYC AIDS Memorial in fall 2025.