Essays

Brief biography of your artist

Daniel Buren was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, France on March 25th 1938 and is a conceptual artist. After graduating from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Métiers d’Art in Paris in 1960, Buren immediately began to reject the classical teachings he had learned. He began painting in the early 1960s and came into the group B.M.P.T. standing for Buren, Mosset, Parmentier and Toroni in 1966. Together they critiqued the practices of the art establishment in Paris. Today Buren is known as the stripe guy, and this began with the B.M.P.T as he took a standard fabric with 8.7cm wide vertical stripes as his own. These stripes alternate between a color and white, and to this day can be found in the same form. The stripes are used as an instrument to expose visual aspects through a viewfinder. The site was also essential to Buren, as he made each of his works site-specific. The context around his works defined what the content could and would be. By working site-specific, Buren’s works were contingent on the site and the perspective it would give, hence the context would create a frame that would define his work. Buren is still alive today, and still making site-specific works with his iconic 8.7 cm wide stripes.

Description of how your artist relates to the key themes of our course

Daniel Buren became known as a French Conceptual artist. Conceptual art, as defined by Sol Lewitt, is “the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art” (Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, 1967). This is seen in Buren’s work, as he works specifically to a certain site. The site and context of the surroundings is a driving force in the work itself. This is seen in his work Within and Beyond the Frame at the John Weber Gallery in 1973. This shows the same striped banner, but in two contexts, the urban streets of New York and the traditional context of a gallery. Conceptual art was also a reaction against the increasing commodification of art, and the traditional outlook that art had to be in a gallery to be art. Buren put up his iconic striped posters all over cities, covering billboards, ads and signs. This was an action against commodification as he covered up the advertisements of the city with striped paper. This was also his way of taking on the city as his own gallery, showing that art can exist beyond a museum and he used the world as his own exhibition even though it was sometimes illegal. Also because of conceptual artist movement against commoditized art and site-specificity, their works were rarely permanent. They therefore could sometimes only be known through documentation such as photographs. Buren took his own photographs of his works which he called “photo-souvenirs”, which were meant only to be a reminder or fragment of what was but not the art itself.

Description of the major artistic influences on your artist as well as how your artist has influenced other artists

Robert Barthes Writing Degree Zero is said to have inspired Burens initial gravitation to stripes. Writing degree zero means to begin from minimal point and then expand and go beyond canvas. Buren’s “degree zero” is the striped fabric he found, and taking this minimal and generic fabric and reflecting it in all of his works. He took this minimal fabric and went beyond canvas and into the street with his public placement of stripes. Daniel Buren’s work was also influenced more as if his work is developed from revolting against the traditional art establishment in Paris. At this time the gallery was the place for established artists and art. With his iconic stripes, he took to the city and made it his own gallery. By adding his posters all over cities and outside of galleries, he was inclined to continue site specific works constructed by its contextual surroundings. For example, in 1968 as his first solo exhibition he covered the Apollinaire Gallery in Milan with his striped poster. This was in revolt against the traditional outlook that artwork should thrive in galleries. It is also unclear who specifically Buren’s work has influenced, as graphic designs such as his stripes are reflected in many aspects of art, fashion and life. His installation Les Deux Plateux in Paris did inspire fashion designer Marc Jacobs in his 2013 collections, which Buren became involved in creating the set for the runway show. Marc Jacobs’s collection includes alternating colors with white, as well as checkerboard designs and stripes that clearly reflect Buren’s aesthetic.

Detailed analysis of your favorite work of art by your artist

La Cabane Éclatée aux Quatre Salles
Santomato Pistoia, Italy- 2004
Cement, mirrors, marble, acrylic colors

La Cabane Éclatée aux Quatre Salles is a cabin located in a park in Italy completely covered in mirrors. The inside, consisting of four open rooms, are vibrant with colored walls of the whole rainbow. The walls are painted so each room has the same colors mirrored to the wall across from it. There are four empty cutouts representing doors around the cabin. Outside of the cabin are the doors of the cabin placed adjacent to its absent place. Of course no work of Buren could go without stripes, and this cabin is no exception. The interior edges of the rooms and walls has black and white vertical stripes, Buren’s signiture style. This cabin is surrounded by nature, creating reflections into the mirrors of the outer walls of the cabin. The effect of the mirrors creates an illusion that the cabin in itself does not exist, even with its vibrant interior. This is a literal interpretation of the context creating the content, as depending on where you are and your perspective, the cabin could effectively appear or disappear before your eyes. When inside of the cabin, its presence and size are clearly felt. But when on the outside of the cabin, the reflection of nature into its four mirrored walls diminishes or erases the size and presence that the cabin occupies. This piece is my favorite of Buren’s merely because it has a clear undertone of humor. As seen in the pictures below, the cabin is quite large and yet it almost completely disappears except the empty doorways that remain floating in nature.