Daniel Buren

One of the leading names in conceptual art and institutional criticism, Daniel Buren was born in 1938 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, where he lives and works. He graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Métiers d'Art in Paris in 1960. 

He made his first paintings with 8.7 cm wide vertical bands in 1965, shortly before founding the “BMPT” group with Olivier Mosset, Michel Parmentier and Niele Toroni. The reduction of painting to a simple, abstract visual form - vertical bands - subject to small formal variations in colour or support (flags, posters, canvases, columns) and designed according to the site of presentation (the museum, the street, the landscape), has allowed Buren to interrogate the limits and subversions of painting, taking into account the parameters of perception and the physical, social and ideological nature of spatial frameworks. Recent works also show an increased interest in the relationship between painting and architecture, involving the use of light and mirrors.

He has exhibited regularly since 1965 and his main solo exhibitions this century include those at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2002); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2005); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg (2014); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2014); Museo - Espacio, Aguascalientes (2016); BOZAR Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2016); Centre Pompidou Málaga; Kunsthalle Dusseldorf (2017); Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz; Carriageworks, Redfern (2018); Museo de Arte Italiano, Lima (2019). He took part in the Kassel Documenta in 1972, 1977 and 1982, and more than ten times in the Venice Biennale, winning the Golden Lion for the French Pavilion in 1986. In 2007, he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale by the Emperor of Japan. His CV includes several public art interventions. He is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome; Tate Modern, London, among many others.

Sofia Nunes