Daniel Buren

Since the 1960s, Daniel Buren has produced countless interventions in the form of public installations, performances, in situ or “situated” projects, affichage sauvage, and exhibitions that have each contributed to defining the critical role of art in contemporary society. In 1965, concerned with the problematics of painting and engaged in a quest for simplicity and reduction, Buren developed the vertical stripe pattern as a “visual instrument” that liberated painting from its traditional representational role. In 1966, he founded the group BMPT with three other artists (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni), whose objective was to find the ‘zero degree’ of painting. Drawing on a reductionist formal vocabulary and deployed in various locations ranging from exterior, public areas to museums and galleries, Buren’s striped pattern serves to reveal certain architectural and cultural characteristics about the spaces it occupies.