Daniel Buren

Born in 1938 in Boulogne Billancourt in France, Daniel Buren is a painter, sculptor and visual artist. He is one of the most renowned artists on the international art scene. After studying art at the Ecole des métiers d'arts, he first turned towards painting, studying interactions between paint and supports. He created the concept which he called the work 'in situ': the context of the artwork becomes an essential element to his compositions. The latter thus transforms a place and alters its function. His signature? Different coloured stripes, 8.7cm wide.

The artist discovered a striped fabric formed of equal lines, which would become his favourite support from the 1960's onwards. With the other artists Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni, he founded the BMPT group, which aimed to offer a critical view of painting and to reduce it to its lowest level. They worked on repetition and sought to emphasise the importance of the place in which the work is created and situated. Painting becomes a means and not an end; it must interact with exhibition spaces that are an integral part of the work. The group subsequently separated and Buren became an independent artist again. Despite his numerous criticisms of traditional cultural institutions, preferring to exhibit in the streets, he has returned to the traditional system (of museums, salons...). Nevertheless, once his installations are completed, the artist generally destroys his works. His compositions in situ are designed to challenge. They play with colours, shapes, movement and the environment… and have a decorative function. The artist's “Hommes Sandwiches" (Sandwich Men) who wandered through the streets of Paris with signs covered with striped paper, perfectly illustrate the concept of in situ work.

Daniel Buren is an artist of indisputable renown, and has left his mark upon many cities. Indeed, in 1986, in the main courtyard of the Palais Royal in Paris, he created an installation that has now become an unmissable attraction. At the Guggenheim Museum in New York, he made a work for the museum space. In 2012, he was the artist in residence of and created an installation for the nave of the Grand Palais for Monumenta. Recently, he exhibited at the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina (MADRE) in Naples.