Norfolk Artist Wins Guggenheim

By Avice Meehan

Conceptual artist and Norfolk resident Tom Burr has received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to pursue independent work under what the foundation described as “the freest possible conditions.” Burr is undertaking a multi-site project that he says is “loosely inspired” by “Saint Paul,” an unrealized screenplay by Pier Paolo Passaolini. The brutal 1975 murder of Passolini, a noted Italian intellectual and director, remains unsolved.

“Alongside themes of conversion and transformation, I am echoing the nomadic structure that [Passolini] brings to his adaptation of the story, where the biblical sites and settings are replaced with contemporary (1966) ones across Europe and the U.S.,” Burr said, noting that his interpretation will be more abstract. Burr’s project opens Sept. 19 at the Grazer Kuntsverein in Graz, Germany, and will conclude in about 19 months with an exhibition at the Fondazione Giuliani in Rome.

Burr will also use the fellowship for a second, overlapping project in Wellfleet, Mass., where he has been invited by the Cape Cod Modern House Trust to engage with a house designed by Marcel Breuer that has recently been restored. That project will also span about 18 months. It echoes an earlier project involving the Breuer-designed Pirelli Tire building in New Haven where Burr was in residence for a year.

The Wellfleet residence will involve making a film of what Burr describes as a “contemplative extended music video.” He said it will “connect reflections on my time there to the modernist histories of Wellfleet and the outer Cape, and the nearby queer histories in Provincetown, specifically through music, disco and pre-disco moments.”

Burr was one of 198 fellows selected by the Guggenheim Foundation during its centennial year across 53 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields. Since its founding in 1925, the foundation has awarded more than $400 million to 19,000 fellows. Burr’s work has been featured in major exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe.
If fall was not busy enough for Burr, non-profit publishing house Primary Information has just released “Torrington Project.” The book documents his three-year takeover of a 19th-century factory in Torrington that culminated with an overlapping series of performances and interactive moments in late 2024. Burr brought together works from throughout his career in an historical space that was itself part of the evolving conversation.

“Torrington Project” both documents and comments on Burr’s three-year residency and includes both critical essays and personal reflections. It can be ordered online through www.primaryinformation.org.