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Cabane Eclatée, 1996

Exploded Hut, 1996
Installation, Hut: 250 x 600 x 600 cm. 9 mirrors: 164 x 164 cm each

"We consider our work to be essentially critical. Critical with respect to its emergence, in that it reveals its own intrinsic contradictions (...). Whoever pretends to be able to escape the limits imposed upon him, merely strengthens the prevailing ideology, which always expects only change from the artist. Art is not free, and the artist does not express himself freely. Art cannot offer the prophecy of a free society. Liberty in art is the privilege and luxury of a repressive society. Art, in whatever form it is made, is solely political. An analysis of the formal and cultural limits (...) within which art exists and struggles, is therefore imperative." Daniel Buren, 1970

Born in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1936, Daniel Buren is among the most lucid French artists of the generation that emerged towards the end of the 60s. He is famous for his use of canvases with white and coloured stripes, and this instrument of vision has become a central image of his way of neutralising painting, while transferring it into the space by modifying its perception. This canvas with its vertical white and coloured stripes, 8.7 cm wide, was found by chance by the artist in a market one day in September 1965. That find marked the beginning of one of the most challenging, controversial and unusual artistic careers of the 20th century. His characteristic stripes become canvas and work, an industrial motif that brought objectivity and impersonality in an attempt to question the concept of art.

Since the late 60s Buren has been constantly developing that concept. With his stripes he has invaded the Paris metro, the Cour d'Honneur of the Palais-Royal and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Since the 90s he has done installations under the generic title of Cabane éclatée (Exploded hut). Resplendent geometries surround the spectator, who is literally transported into the space of the work which is also the space of the exhibition. The image of calculation and symmetrical layout thus takes on a pictorial value which completely modifies the architecture without intervening in the structure.

The Cabane éclatée (1996) at MACBA is a site specific work by the artist. It was produced for the exhibition Mirades (sobre el Museu), curated by Antònia Maria Perelló and organised in the summer of 1996 to coincide with the International Architects Congress held in Barcelona.

This work synthesises Buren's main concerns: the relations between space and work, architecture as the framework for all activity, the transformations the work imprints on the space where it is located. There is a formalisation which is quite typical of the author in the use of the mirror and the regular width stripes. There is also an allusion to Mondrian in the use of his customary colours. The relation is provided by the compositions that seem to have guided the design of all the windows of Richard Meier's building, in which there is a clear neoplasticist component.

The miniature building covered with mirrors reflects the windows of the museum to recreate a new reality. The work encourages the spectator to move, to walk around the perimeter and to venture inside. And so it also has a time dimension, as does much of the art of our day.

Throughout his career, Buren has advocated working "on site". He has always conceived his works for a particular place and, at the same time, carried out a major literary task, delving deeper into his interest in architecture.


Technical details

Original title:
Cabane Eclatée
Registration number:
0279
Artist:
Buren, Daniel
Date created:
1996
Date acquired:
1997
Fonds:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Object type:
Installation
Media:
Painted conglomerate wood and mirrors
Dimensions:
Hut: 250 x 600 x 600 cm. 9 mirrors: 164 x 164 cm each
Credits:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Copyright:
© Daniel Buren, VEGAP, Barcelona
It has accessibility resources:
No

The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.

For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.

If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.