Daniel Buren

When in 1971 Daniel Buren hung a 65-foot striped canvas in the central well of the New York Guggenheim, Donald Judd referred to him as "a Parisian wallpaper hanger." In 1986, his permanent Two Plateaus installation in the courtyard of Paris's Palais Royal provoked such controversy that the project was almost brought to a standstill. In his consistent questioning of how art is conceived and perceived, Buren has often incited criticism, in the face of which he has maintained a rare integrity and coherence in his work. In this monograph, the only publication currently available on the artist, author Guy Lelong examines the origins, significance, and inherently provocative nature of Buren's art. His analysis underlines one of its most prominent and influential aspects: the deliberate inversion of the relationship art works maintain with the places where they are exhibited. Fully illustrated throughout with Buren's own "photo-souvenirs" of his site-specific works, this volume offers a comprehensive analysis of this artist's work to date. It is published to coincide with a retrospective traveling from the Centre Georges Pompidou to the Guggenheim SoHo in fall 2002.