Artist: Daniel Buren

Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea presents the fifth exhibition of the French artist Daniel Buren with the gallery in its Torre Pellice venue, following his first solo show in 1985 in the then premises, Mulino Feyles, in Corso Tassoni in Turin.

Photo-souvenir: Exhibition view Daniel Buren. Basso- rilievi e Altorilievi. Lavori in situ e situati 2020-2024 at TUCCI RUSSO Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, Torre Pellice. Courtesy the artist and TUCCI RUSSO Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, Torre Pellice / Turin. Photo © Archivio fotografico Galleria Tucci Russo © DB - ADAGP Paris

One of the leading exponents of Conceptual Art, Daniel Buren boasts an international career spanning more than 50 years. Since the mid-1960s, the artist has chosen to experiment with the zero degree of painting by using an industrial fabric with vertical stripes 8.7 cm wide, alternating white with another colour. Starting from a simple visual register, Buren leads the observer to shift his attention from the work to the entire physical and social environment on which he intervenes. Since 1967, the artist has abandoned studio work in favour of interventions made in situ (streets, galleries, museums, landscapes, buildings), creating works that are simultaneously related to painting, sculpture and architecture. Believing in the combination of art and life and playing with colours, light, viewpoints and movement, the artist radically transforms the surrounding space and stimulates the direct involvement of the public.

Daniel Buren’s work lies between action and intervention and undergoes constant development and diversification. The exhibition unfolds in two exhibition halls of the gallery where the artist will present a nucleus of 14 works, 7 of which are situated (to use the term Buren himself adopts) and 7 made in situ; in other words, they have been created in relation to their surroundings and inspired by the space in which they are placed. Reconnecting with the concept of sculpture, the title of the exhibition picks up on the techniques of high relief and bas-relief used by man since earliest times. Whereas in high relief the figures stand out strongly from the surface and protrude almost in the round from the plane, in bas-relief they emerge to a much lesser extent. Similarly, some of Daniel Buren’s works in the exhibition feature coloured prisms and/or striped decoration that clearly emerge from the wall, unfolding one after the other or alternating with mirrored surfaces. The latter, reflecting their surroundings, incorporate the space and interact with it and the viewer. Together with the prisms, they create a succession of voids and solids (as in Baroque art), positioning themselves between painting, sculpture and architecture.
Other works on display, on the other hand, are realised by means of square iron grids with different textures which, as they develop in sequence, protrude to a lesser extent from the wall, creating an effect (like a bas-relief) that is less projecting and recalls a relief painting. With their decorative force, Daniel Buren’s works transform the place in which they are placed and stimulate the visitor to reflect on his perception of it.

* “Bas-reliefs and High Reliefs. In situ and situated works 2020-2024”

Daniel Buren (Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 1938) lives and works in situ. Earlier he trained at the École des Métiers d’Art. The many locations of his interventions include some of the major Parisian institutions such as Fondation Vuitton, Palais de Tokyo, Centre George Pompidou. He is also the author of the permanent in situ work “Les Deux Plateaux” (1985-86) located in the Court of Honor of the Palais-Royal in Paris, as well as hundreds of in situ and permanent works conceived and made for public places all around the world among which Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, USA, Canada, Mexico, China, Korea etc... A brief selection of international interventions as one-man shows includes: Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach, Germany (1971); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1976); Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands (1976); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1976); PAC - Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy (1979); Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Detroit, USA (1981); Brooklyn Art Museum, New York, USA (1988); Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (1995); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA (2003); Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2005). In 1965 he won the Paris Biennale Prize, then in 1986 he represented France at the 42nd Venice Biennale where he won the prestigious Golden Lion as best pavilion. In 2007 he received the Praemium Imperiale for Painting from the Japan Art Association and in 2024 the Premio Internacional de Mecenazgo awarded by the Callia Foundation of Spain.