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Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art
The first book to chart Scott Burton’s performance art and sculpture of the 1970s.
Scott Burton (1939–89) created performance art and sculpture that drew on queer experience and the sexual cultures that flourished in New York City in the 1970s. David J. Getsy argues that Burton looked to body language and queer behavior in public space—most importantly, street cruising—as foundations for rethinking the audiences and possibilities of art. This first book on the artist examines Burton’s underacknowledged contributions to performance art and how he made queer life central in them. Extending his performances about cruising, sexual signaling, and power dynamics throughout the decade, Burton also came to create functional sculptures that covertly signaled queerness by hiding in plain sight as furniture waiting to be used.
With research drawing from multiple archives and numerous interviews, Getsy charts Burton’s deep engagements with postminimalism, performance, feminism, behavioral psychology, design history, and queer culture. A restless and expansive artist, Burton transformed his commitment to gay liberation into a unique practice of performance, sculpture, and public art that aspired to be antielitist, embracing of differences, and open to all. Filled with stories of Burton’s life in New York’s art communities, Queer Behavior makes a case for Burton as one of the most significant out queer artists to emerge in the wake of the Stonewall uprising and offers rich accounts of queer art and performance art in the 1970s.
Scott Burton (1939–89) created performance art and sculpture that drew on queer experience and the sexual cultures that flourished in New York City in the 1970s. David J. Getsy argues that Burton looked to body language and queer behavior in public space—most importantly, street cruising—as foundations for rethinking the audiences and possibilities of art. This first book on the artist examines Burton’s underacknowledged contributions to performance art and how he made queer life central in them. Extending his performances about cruising, sexual signaling, and power dynamics throughout the decade, Burton also came to create functional sculptures that covertly signaled queerness by hiding in plain sight as furniture waiting to be used.
With research drawing from multiple archives and numerous interviews, Getsy charts Burton’s deep engagements with postminimalism, performance, feminism, behavioral psychology, design history, and queer culture. A restless and expansive artist, Burton transformed his commitment to gay liberation into a unique practice of performance, sculpture, and public art that aspired to be antielitist, embracing of differences, and open to all. Filled with stories of Burton’s life in New York’s art communities, Queer Behavior makes a case for Burton as one of the most significant out queer artists to emerge in the wake of the Stonewall uprising and offers rich accounts of queer art and performance art in the 1970s.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published January 13, 2023
37 people want to read
About the author
David J. Getsy
15 books7 followersDavid J. Getsy is Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His books include Abstract Bodies: Sixties Sculpture in the Expanded Field of Gender, Scott Burton: Collected Writings on Art and Performance, and Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 17, 2025
I read about a comprehensive Scott Burton show focused on his furniture but this book is about his performance art. His notion of making art that is both art and functional takes Duchamp’s idea of turning the functional into art to another level.
The problem with the performance art is that it unfolds in real time and is impossible to capture in language. The few small photographs the book contains doesn’t do the performances justice. There are a few useful concepts here; Burtons’ expansive understanding of autobiographical influences allows him to generalize his gay experience and turn it into performance.
Most insightful is using performance art to decode the nonverbal behavior of gay male cruising. It helps gay men see themselves performing in a sexual experience. But while gay men don’t have a monopoly on cruising, they are more dependent upon it and that can convey to straight people how they use body language for courtship.
The problem with the performance art is that it unfolds in real time and is impossible to capture in language. The few small photographs the book contains doesn’t do the performances justice. There are a few useful concepts here; Burtons’ expansive understanding of autobiographical influences allows him to generalize his gay experience and turn it into performance.
Most insightful is using performance art to decode the nonverbal behavior of gay male cruising. It helps gay men see themselves performing in a sexual experience. But while gay men don’t have a monopoly on cruising, they are more dependent upon it and that can convey to straight people how they use body language for courtship.
Displaying 1 of 1 review