daniel buren

Daniel Buren (1938, Boulogne-Billancourt, France) has been a leading name in conceptual art since the 1960s, as a founding member of the BMPT group, and remains thus to this day. He is best known for using symmetrical, contrasting maxi stripes that integrate visual surfaces and architectural spaces, notably in historical landmarks. Buren began producing unsolicited public artworks using striped awning canvases which are common in France  –he started by setting up hundreds of striped posters around Paris and later, in over 100 underground stations, quickly drawing significant public attention to these unauthorized urban interventions. Buren introduced the notion of ‘in situ’ in visual arts in order to characterize the practice that intrinsically binds  topological and cultural specificities of the places where the work is presented.

Buren soon began to focus on the rising influence of architecture (particularly museum architecture) in art. He began to produce more three-dimensional works and to conceive artworks as modulations of space, rather than as objects. His work became its own site and a place for movement in and around it. Beginning in the 1990s, the artist no longer merely applied the color to walls, but literally ‘installed it in space’ in the form of filters and colored sheets of glass or plexiglas. With this, it seems as if the work exploded unto our space - a sensation which Buren intensifies with the use of mirrors - inviting the viewer to engage with the work with their entire body. Buren challenges conventional notions of where art can be seen and how it can be understood. Lately, his investigations have evolved into using light to produce macro-scale color effects, and mirrors to alter space through image refraction.

Daniel Buren lives and works in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. His work has been widely exhibited internationally. Recent solo shows and projects include: Daniel Buren, at Daegu Art Museum (2022), in Daegu, South Korea; Daniel Buren. De cualquier manera, trabajos ‘in situ’, at Museo de Arte Italiano (2019), in Lima, Peru; Like Child’s Play, at Carriageworks (2018), in Sydney, Australia; Daniel Buren – Del medio círculo al círculo completo: Un recorrido de color, at Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (MAMBO) (2017), in Bogota, Colombia; Proyecciones / Retroproyecciones. Trabajos in situ, at Centre Pompidou Málaga (2017), in Málaga, Spain. Buren participated in three edition of Documenta, in Kassel, Germany (1972, 1977, and 1982). Recent group shows include: En Plein Air, at High Line Art (2019), in New York, USA; La Collection (1), Highlights for a Future, at Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK) (2019), in Gent, Belgium; Suspension – A History of Abstract Hanging Sculpture 1918-2018, at Palais d’Iéna (2018), in Paris, France; Pedra no céu – Arte e Arquitetura de Paulo Mendes da Rocha, at Museu Brasileiro de Escultura e Ecologia (MUBE) (2017), in São Paulo, Brazil. His works are included in important institutional collections, such as: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Musée national d’Art moderne (MNAM), Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, Italy; Tate Modern, London, UK, among others.