Daniel Buren

Daniel Buren has punctuated the past 50 years of art with unforgettable interventions, controversial critical texts, thought-provoking public art projects and engaging collaborations with artists from different generations. Throughout his career Buren has created artworks that complicate the relationship between art and the structures that frame it. In the early 1960s, he developed a radical form of Conceptual Art, a “degree zero of painting” as he called it, which played simultaneously on an economy of means and the relationship between the support and the medium. In 1965 he began using his 8.7cm-wide vertical stripes as the starting point for research into what painting is, how it is presented, and more broadly, the physical and social environment in which an artist works. All of Buren’s interventions are created in situ, borrowing and colouring the spaces in which they are presented. They are critical tools addressing questions of how we look and perceive, and the way space can be used, appropriated, and revealed in its social and physical nature. In his work life finds its way into art, while autonomous art is able to reconnect with life.

Daniel Buren was born in Boulogne-Billancourt (Paris), France in 1938. He lives and works in situ. His work has been the subject of major exhibitions at Museo de Arte Italiano, Lima, Peru (2019); Carriageworks, Redfern, Australia (2018); Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, OH, USA (2018); Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany (2018); Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany (2017); Centre Pompidou Málaga, Málaga, Spain (2017); BOZAR Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium (2016); Museo - Espacio, Aguascalientes, Mexico (2016); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2014); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France (2014); Centre Pompidou-Metz, France (2013); the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA (2005) and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2002). Buren has exhibited in the Venice Biennale, Italy more than ten times and was awarded the Golden Lion for his French Pavilion in 1986. That same year, he produced his first and most controversial public commission, The Two Plateaux, for the main courtyard of the Palais-Royal in Paris, France. In 2007, he received the Praemium Imperiale for Painting from Japan. Most recently, he was selected for the site specific Monumenta 2012 commission at the Grand Palais in Paris, France. Buren’s 1994 installation The Arches, permanent work in situ, is on view at the Southampton City Art Gallery, and in May 2017, he launched another permanent installation in the UK – Diamonds and Circles, works in situ – at Tottenham Court Road station in London, commissioned by Art on the Underground.

Daniel Buren
Pile Up: High relief n°B12

2018
Powder coated aluminium Overall dimensions: 304.5 x 130.5 x 30.5 cm / Overall dimensions: 119 7/8 x 51 3/8 x 12 in

Daniel Buren
Pile Up: High relief n°B12

2018
Powder coated aluminium Overall dimensions: 304.5 x 130.5 x 30.5 cm / Overall dimensions: 119 7/8 x 51 3/8 x 12 in

Daniel Buren
Pile Up: High relief n° B5

2017
Powder coated aluminium Overall dimensions: 304.5 x 130.5 x 30.5 cm / 119 7/8 x 51 3/8 x 12 in

Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren Pile Up: High relief n° B1

2017
Powder coated aluminium Overall dimensions: 304.5 x 130.5 x 30.5 cm / 119 7/8 x 51 3/8 x 12 in

Daniel Buren
Tondo n° 17

2015
Coloured plexiglass, coloured altuglas in orange (15000), smoked yellow (16049), clear green (14004), clear blue (13010), red (12000) and green (14000), self-adhesive strips, steel 215 cm (diameter) / 84 5/8 in (diameter)

Daniel Buren
Colours for a Pergola: situated work

2014
Clear acrylic sheets, coloured self-adhesive filters, wood, screws, white paint, self-adhesive black vinyl 3 x 9 x 3 m / 7.6 x 22.9 x 7.6 cm m

Daniel Buren
Colours for a Pergola: situated work

2014
Clear acrylic sheets, coloured self-adhesive filters, wood, screws, white paint, self-adhesive black vinyl 3 x 9 x 3 m / 7.6 x 22.9 x 7.6 cm m

Daniel Buren
Photo-souvenir 'Excentrique(s)', work in situ in 'Monumenta 2012', Grand Palais, Paris, France

Detail. © DB - ADAGP

Daniel Buren
Photo-souvenir 'Excentrique(s)', work in situ in 'Monumenta 2012', Grand Palais, Paris, France

Detail. © DB - ADAGP

Daniel Buren
Catch as catch can: work in situ

2014
10 standing mirrors framed with white vinyl stripes, transparent vinyl (7 colours) Mirrors: 200.1 x 200.1 cm / Mirrors 78.8 x 78.8 in

Daniel Buren
Catch as catch can: work in situ

2014
10 standing mirrors framed with white vinyl stripes, transparent vinyl (7 colours) Mirrors: 200.1 x 200.1 cm / Mirrors 78.8 x 78.8 in

Daniel Buren
Peinture sur/sous plexiglas sur tissu Superposition: painting covering cloth

2011
Striped cloth and plexiglass Height 250 cm, width 200 cm / height 98.4 in width 78.7 in

Daniel Buren
5 Colours of Electric Light: situated work

2011
Woven fibre optic, LED (blue, green, orange, red, yellow and white), metal boxes 43.5 x 43.5 cm each / 17.1 x 17.1 in each

Daniel Buren
A Square of Electric Light # 4: situated work

2011
Woven fibre optic, LED (white, red), metal box 147.9 x 147.9 cm / 58 1/4 x 58 1/4 in

Daniel Buren
A Perimeter for a Room work in situ

2011
Clear acrylic sheets, coloured self-adhesive filters, wood, screws, steel cables, white paint, self-adhesive black vinyl Perimeter 4800 cm, depth 150 cm / Perimeter 1889.8 in depth 59.1 in

Daniel Buren
A Perimeter for a Room work in situ

2011
Clear acrylic sheets, coloured self-adhesive filters, wood, screws, steel cables, white paint, self-adhesive black vinyl Perimeter 4800 cm, depth 150 cm / Perimeter 1889.8 in depth 59.1 in

Daniel Buren
A Perimeter for a Room work in situ

2011
Clear acrylic sheets, coloured self-adhesive filters, wood, screws, steel cables, white paint, self-adhesive black vinyl Perimeter 4800 cm, depth 150 cm / Perimeter 1889.8 in depth 59.1 in

Daniel Buren
From three windows, 5 colours for 252 places, work in situ

2006
18 aluminium frames and transparent vinyl (blue, yellow of now, orange, pink, red, green) on Plexiglas panels; hanging system Dimensions variable