daniel buuren monumenta

FULL - "Showing", from the visual tool to the decorative tool

"Showing" encourages pupils to consider Daniel Buren's work as a whole, from the creation of the visual tool, consisting of the stripes, 8.7 cm wide, which he has used since 1965, right up to the work which he has created for MONUMENTA. In tackling the history of the visual tool, this themed visit will enable them to study the history and the role of the stripes which identify the work of the artist, along with the other methods that he employs in order "to show" the site. Beyond the occasionally critical position of the artist, this tour will prompt pupils to contemplate the artist's approach to decoration.

FULL - The work in situ

Daniel Buren is the inventor of the term "work in situ". The concept of the event, inherent in his works, marks a break from the traditional concept of the work of art which is created in historic time; the work-event insists on the importance of experience in art.
The construction of the work in situ is affected by the constraints connected with the site, its physical space, but also its history and its current use. Part of the artist's work consists in rooting out these constraints and revealing them; they become a factor in the act of creation.
It was because of this logic of working with the site, or occasionally "against" the site, that Daniel Buren abandoned, in 1967, the use of a studio as the production space for his work. The issue of the work in situ modifies the relationship between the reproduction of the work, and of the souvenir that one keeps of it. This visit will immerse pupils in the problem of location, which lies at the heart of Daniel Buren's work.

FULL - The movement of the work, the challenges of the work in vivo

The work of Daniel Buren is conceived as a totality, and the artist invites visitors to penetrate the work, as if it were a space to explore, to move into. Light, whether natural or artificial, constitutes another source of movement in this work, changing our perception of its colours over a period of time. This themed visit will broach the question of movement, a recurrent element in Daniel Buren's work, the temporality of the work, and will reflect on the status of the work of art, when it is not kept at a distance as in museums.

FULL - "The volume of colour"

Colour - sometimes material, sometimes immaterial - is one of the essential elements in the work of Daniel Buren. Purely sensory, the experience of colour cannot be put into words, and the artist likens it to a form of "visual thought". He has often emphasised his belief in the primordial role of colour in his works, in stark contrast to the hostility which certain artists of his generation have shown towards it. This visit will enable pupils to understand the way that Daniel Buren uses colour as a system, and will trace a brief history of the role of colour in contemporary art.

FULL - The notion of the work of art, the notion of Beauty

What is a work of art? How do you define Beauty? So many questions of this kind are recurrent in the art of the 20th century, and in the work of Daniel Buren. This themed visit proposes to analyse the essential definitions in the history of the arts, contrasting them with Daniel Buren's approach and paying particular attention to the notions of the happening, the work in situ, and the work in vivo.