The New York City AIDS Memorial presents Eternal Flame for Scott Burton, a major new public commission by Oscar Tuazon, as a centerpiece of the organization’s 10th-anniversary programming. The project reimagines and creatively readapts the final public installation of sculptor and performance artist Scott Burton (1939-1989), commissioned by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs’ Percent for Art Program for the Sheepshead Bay fishing piers.

The work will be installed at the New York City AIDS Memorial at St. Vincent’s Triangle for one year.

“As we prepare to mark the New York City AIDS Memorial’s first decade, Eternal Flame for Scott Burton reflects our commitment to preserving the history of the AIDS crisis by keeping its memory alive in the present,” shared Dave Harper, Executive Director, New York City AIDS Memorial. “Oscar Tuazon’s reinterpretation of Burton’s final public installation honors a pioneering artist lost to AIDS, restores an essential chapter of New York’s cultural legacy, and bridges generations, affirming the Memorial as a living site where art and remembrance converge.”

In 1987, the Percent for Art Program commissioned Burton to create a site-specific work for ten newly refurbished piers in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Completed in 1994, five years after Burton’s death from AIDS-related illness, the work earned an Award of Excellence in Design from the Art Commission of the City of New York. However, constant exposure to a harsh marine environment and its submergence during Superstorm Sandy caused irreparable harm. Following its formal decommissioning in 2022, the work’s core elements were meticulously salvaged by Olney Gleason, ensuring Burton’s final public artwork could be preserved and recontextualized for a new generation.

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