feature
Daniel Bettering
Buren BilBao
ten years on, France’s leading artist adds the finishing
touches to Frank gehry’s masterpiece.
words Jane neal
daniel buren is arguably france’s to leave… If I am invited, and I am
most celebrated and influential interested by the proposal, I come.
living artist, and yet until recently the If I am not invited, I don’t.” In France
Anglo-American artworld regarded Buren was commissioned to create
him as a gauche or lightweight little a permanent mosaic pavement
brother to the likes of Judd or Flavin, a installation to celebrate the reopening
perception no doubt reinforced by the of the Fabre Museum in Montpellier,
removal of one of Buren’s works from and in Venice he was invited by
a group show at the Guggenheim Robert Storr, the Biennale’s curator,
Museum, New York, in 1971 following to create a work for the Giardini: a
protests from the other artists, who multicoloured mini-pavilion that he
complained that it was obscuring their installed in the small garden opposite
works. Flavin may have doubted that the Polish and Romanian pavilions.
‘little Buren’ would ‘ever again surface In addition to his own projects,
in New York’, but the Frenchman Buren curated Sophie Calle’s
survived the storm and, some might exhibition for the French Pavilion. An
say, had the last laugh: in 2005 he was Going Through, 2007, La Salve Bridge, Bilbao. intriguing story lies behind Calle and
invited back to the Guggenheim for
© the artist. Courtesy the artist and Guggenheim Bilbao
Buren’s collaboration. In France the
a solo show, The Eye of the Storm. artist is invited first to participate in the
Since the 1960s Buren has most often been described – rather Biennale and then to invite a commissioner of his or her choice. Calle
reductively – as ‘the stripe guy’. True, the 8.7 cm stripe has been the changed the rules by making an announcement in various newspapers
primary feature of his work for the past 40 years, but the stripe was throughout Europe and America, declaring that she would make her
never meant to become a signature; rather, he intended it as a means choice from the people who answered her ad. Buren said: “I found her
of demystifying painting, of undermining the autonomy of the artist. initiative extremely intelligent and critical, and almost as a game I sent
A recent show of Buren’s work at Bortolami Dayan gallery in New my answer. She received over 200 answers and she chose me!”
York concentrated on the turning point in his career – the period Most recently Buren has completed a project in Pasadena – a
between 1965 and 1966 when he began to make the transition from full geometric square suspended over the top of an existing pedestrian
producing paintings in a medley of abstract styles to having them square. The square is formed from a series of orange and red triangular
made for him from awning fabric. This was the point at which Buren flags of around 40 cm in length, displayed next to each other in
began to think about his work’s relationship to architecture, to space long lines of approximately 50 m. Buren’s intention was to create a
and to the institution itself: “When I realised how dependent I was on coloured carpet that moves with the wind, poised over the heads of
architecture and on the context created by different architectures”, he the passing pedestrians.
tells me, “instead of ignoring it, I started to work with or against it, but I Next month Buren will unveil a monumental creation for
decided to never forget it. Absolutely all and any work of art depends Bilbao’s La Salve Bridge, which is to become part of the Guggenheim’s
on architecture.” From then on, all of Buren’s works, in their various permanent collection of site-specific works. October marks the tenth
manifestations, depended “more or less strongly on the space where anniversary of the inauguration of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,
they can be seen”. and the institution decided to celebrate by commissioning an artwork
Buren has been busy during the last year, beginning with a for the single-arch suspension bridge, which predates the Frank Gehry-
critically acclaimed exhibition at Modern Art Oxford. In the summer, designed museum by 25 years. The commissioning process began with
Buren had his first solo show in London for 20 years, at the Lisson a limited competition between four artists: Buren, Liam Gillick, Jenny
Gallery. He is nonchalant about the gap, explaining: “I never decided Holzer and Cristina Iglesias.
BUREN.indd 2 10/8/07 09:48:18
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