Daniel Buren

Who is Daniel Buren

French artist Daniel Buren was born in 1938. He has redefined the boundaries of contemporary art through a highly structured yet deeply personal visual language.

Since the 1960s, he has stood out for his systematic use of vertical white and colored stripes. This motif, repeated with deliberate consistency, became a tool for challenging the traditional conventions of painting.

Early in his career, he co-founded the BPMT collective with three fellow artists, committing to the lifelong exploration of a single visual theme while rejecting the label of “painters.”

His provocative approach caused friction with institutions. During the 1971 Guggenheim International Exhibition, other artists complained and had one of his works removed.

In the 1980s, Buren shifted his focus to site-specific installations—works designed to interact closely with their architectural and environmental context. These “in situ” pieces, often temporary, are documented through photos and visual materials once dismantled. Alongside these, Buren also developed “situated works”: creations that maintain the core principles of his visual practice while not bound to a single location. A key example is the installation he produced for the opening of the Rivoli Museum in 1984.

The vision and works of Daniel Buren

Daniel Buren challenges traditional art with geometric forms and primary colors. He embraces ephemeral works that explore time, space, and the art market.

Buren has created several iconic installations throughout his career.

In the 1970s, he suspended colorful fabrics on Parisian rooftops. In the 1990s, he incorporated mirrors and reflective surfaces to enhance light. One of his most famous works is the 1986 installation at the Palais Royal in Paris, featuring black and white columns of varying heights.

Daniel Buren in Pistoia (Italy)

Pistoia Musei presents an unmissable exhibition dedicated to Daniel Burton, one of the most critical voices in international contemporary art. Fare, Disfare, Rifare. Lavori in situ e situoati 1968-2025

From 8 March to 27 July 2025, Palazzo Buontalen will host a major exhibition dedicated to Daniel Buren.

The show, DANIEL BUREN. Fare, Disfare, Rifare. Lavori in situ e situata 1968-2025 (DANIEL BUREN. Make, Unmake, Remake. Works in situ and situated works 1968-2025), is organised by Fondazione Pistoia Musei with support from Fondazione Caript and in collaboration with Galleria Continua. It is curated by Daniel Buren and Monica Preti, director of Fondazione Pistoia Musei, Fondazione Caript’s organisation for art and culture.

Exploring the work of the French artist, the exhibition invites visitors to discover ten rooms and the inner courtyard of the palace. They feature a selection of:

• paintings made between 1965 and 1967, two Cabane
• two Cabane from 1985 and 2000/2019
• a few recent light works and high-reliefs
• a room devoted to sketches for works made in Tuscany and works specially created/recreated for Pistoia Musei.

The exhibition examines how Buren transforms architectural spaces through form, colour, and materials to create a continuous and lasting dialogue between art and environment.

Buren’s ‘Make, Unmake, Remake’ Concept

The exhibition focuses particularly on Daniel Buren’s tie with Italy and Tuscany, presenting works made in Italy that the artist has revisited and recreated in a continuous process of Making, Unmaking, Remaking. With this idea, Buren questions and reformulates his work. He gives new meaning to projects created in Italy between 1968 and today. This invites viewers to reflect on the transformation of art over time and across different contexts.

The signature feature of Daniel Buren’s art is the motif of vertical stripes, alternately white and coloured and always 8.7 centimeters wide.

He first started using an industrial fabric for paintings in 1965, and he returned to it after 1967 for works made in urban contexts and in institutional or non-institutional places of art and culture. This rigorously simple visual device became his outil visuel, or ‘visual tool’. In the 1970s, he began creating three-dimensional works using printed fabrics, paper, glass, mirrors, wood, Plexiglas, and more. Buren describes this practice as ‘in situ’, and it is an approach that rejects the independence of the works, which are closely tied to the features, both physical (space, architecture, materials) and cultural (history, tradition, community), of the places in which he creates and installs them.

Buren’s ‘Make, Unmake, Remake’ Location

Palazzo Buontalenti will be the heart of the whole exhibition, which will extend to Pistoia Musei’s other locations, where new, specially-created works will be on view, and the surrounding area, which will host works that were created by Daniel Buren star<ng in the new millennium, such as Three-coloured fountain walls for a hexagon (2005–2011) in the park of Villa La Magia at Quarrata and La Cabane Éclatée aux Quatre Salles (2005) in Gori Collection – Fattoria di Celle in Santomato di Pistoia.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a varied programme of related events for all audiences and a catalogue (published by Gli Ori editori contemporanei), including an interview with Daniel Buren by Monica Preti.

More details: https://www.pistoiamusei.it/en/mostra/daniel-buren-fare-disfare-rifare-2/

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