DANIEL BUREN
[Translate to English:]
DANIEL BUREN
(born in 1938 in Boulogne, Billancourt, lives in Paris) is arguably the most internationally renowned French artist. For over 30 years, he has been creating works that directly reference their surrounding space. He was one of the first to use the term in situ to describe his artistic approach. His works are usually destroyed when an exhibition is dismantled. All that remains are photographic documentation, catalogs, and Buren's own descriptions of the works.
At the end of the 1960s, Buren turned away from painting and declared vertical, colored, and white stripes to be the basic material of his art. Since the early 1980s, he has also incorporated materials such as wood, Plexiglas, mirrors, and glass into his works, which are gradually being used more autonomously. He also creates his own spaces by inserting partitions, corridors, or walk-in cubes into exhibition rooms.
Among his most famous projects are the installation for the Venice Biennale in 1986, where he had strips of plaster milled from the walls of the French pavilion and partially structured wall surfaces with mirror strips; the legendary installation for the courtyard of the Palais Royal in Paris, which he rhythmically structured with column pieces of varying heights and stripes all around, and an intervention for the Vienna Secession in 1989, where he confronted the simple white interior of the Art Nouveau building with colored stripes.
Since 1960, Buren has created hundreds of public works—commissioned and unauthorized, permanent and temporary.
The video documentation in the foyer of Kunstraum Innsbruck provides insight into Daniel Buren's public works with a selection of 150 pieces. The street, the urban public space, presents a particular artistic challenge. The museum setting, which defines its contents as art, is not present, nor are the corresponding expectations of the audience. Buren's artistic interventions encounter the everyday attention of passers-by on the street. The range of reactions is broad and diverse. Perhaps not even recognized as such, art leaves its mark on everyday urban life.
One of these works—Seven Ballets in Manhattan—is shown as a slide installation in the project space of Kunstraum Innsbruck. The setting is various locations in Manhattan. Men carry panels covered with striped paper. Nothing else is visible, no title, no author. When asked, they replied: “We carry panels that are covered with vertical stripes on the front and back.” The images of this scene are continuously projected onto the walls of the room, transporting visitors to the heart of New York. Sketches and drafts
Daniel Buren exhibits at the French Cultural Institute in Innsbruck Buren records ideas and basic concepts for artworks that have been realized or are yet to be realized. These are sketches used to clarify and illustrate ideas. Buren also incorporates his precise ideas into the presentation of these designs.
Daniel Buren talks about his work Thursday, February 15, 2001, 8:00 p.m. To kick off the exhibition, Daniel Buren will give a lecture at the Kunstraum Innsbruck. Buren will talk about his work, supported by a slide projection. The lecture will be in French with simultaneous translation.
