Bortolami is pleased to present Daniel Buren’s seventh exhibition with the gallery, The Colored Mirrors, situated works, low reliefs, a series of new situated works composed of multi-colored mirror and painted MDF.
In his nearly 60-year career, Daniel Buren is best known for his use of contrasting stripes as a visual tool that reveals the specific features and dimensions of a site, often transforming the environment for which it was specifically designed. He alters the perception and context of one's surroundings by modifying the navigation of space, enhancing lighting, obstructing viewpoints, and highlighting certain architectural features. Buren constructs his work—much of which is temporary—in the architecture of both public and private spaces ranging from subway platforms to museums.
Work in situ - "denotes a work made for a particular site, for a particular time and exhibited in this particular site, and therefore not transportable to another place." Buren has also identified himself as an artist who "lives and works in situ."
Situated work - "a work for the most part inspired by a particular location but made with the intention that the very same elements of the original work can be reinstalled in different sites following a series of rules, changing each time in response to the given place. In turn, the site is changed by the work."
Visual tool - the sign of white and color alternating stripes of exactly 8.7 cm. in width, as derived from the fabric he first used as a canvas in 1965. This functions as a tool in Buren's work, as a standard or unit of measure of formal properties. Significantly, it is also an intended sign that serves as a constant within the wildly variable parameters and juxtapositions of any and all in situ and situated work since 1965 without exception.
Daniel Buren (b. 1938) has been the subject of major museum exhibitions worldwide. Buren has exhibited in the Venice Biennale more than 10 times and was awarded the Golden Lion in 1986. He participated in documenta 5, 6, and 7. In 2007, he received the Praemium Imperiale for Painting from Japan and was selected to exhibit at MONUMENTA 2012 at the Grand Palais in Paris. He has been the subject of large-scale, solo exhibitions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, the Art Institute of Chicago, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Bozar in Brussels, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Metz, and Malaga, Guggenheim New York and Bilbao, among countless other institutions. Currently, the Museum of Modern Art has 13 of Buren’s works on view. Daniel Buren lives and works in situ.
