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1000 Placements

Daniel Buren
1000 Placements
1976
A group of seven rubber stamp prints on Bristol paper

Stamp made by Unity Engraving Company, Inc.
Printed by Aaron Arnow
Paper size (each): 8 x 8 inches (20.3 x 20.3 cm)
This installation: 80 x 128 inches (203.2 x 325.1 cm)
Edition of 250 in blue (the project had 250 elements in each of four colors: blue, green, red, and yellow). This group is editions: 16, 77, 154, 181, 201, 212, and 231
Numbered lower verso. Unsigned.
(Inventory #38066)

Buren’s project, like all his other works from 1965 to the present, involves his signature 8.7 cm wide stripe, a pattern he found in 1965 (a bolt of striped awning fabric). The specificity of the stripes is not meant to be read as content but as a visual tool. Over the years, Buren has created interventions using these stripes in, on, and out of various materials. These interventions only work when they are “in situ” as the materials have to interact with the space in which they are placed, with the interaction itself resulting in the work. For the Rubber Stamp Portfolio, Buren used the guidelines of an 8 x 8 inches (20.32 x 20.32 cm) piece of paper. To create the continuity of his 8.7 cm stripe, he needed to create six different variants. Furthermore, he took those 6 different variants and printed them all in four different colors (blue, green, red, and yellow). On the back of each from the edition of 1000, is instructions of the works particular placement on a wall, which is guided by color, which of six variant “images” it is, and edition number. In the current exhibition, examples of all four colors are exhibited, all installed per the artist’s instructions. For further information, view the additional image for each example.

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Daniel Buren’s exhibitions and installations are conceived and created solely from their architectural and institutional settings. Buren uses the term “in situ” to describe the relationship between his work and the sites where they take place. A work in situ exists only in relation to the specific place that prompted it. In his work, Buren addresses characteristics of the host space and, in doing so, tends to transform it.

Buren examines a site’s structure, architecture, layout of rooms, exits, hallways, staircases, and windows. He also considers the more abstract aspects of a given space: the network of social, economic, and political forces at play in any given context. Because his work considers this constellation of variables, each is particular to the site it inhabits. From their very conception, his works are closely related to settings that represent the scenarios of everyday living. They are meant for and exist through direct interaction, eliciting the viewer’s sensibility, intelligence, and reflections.

In 1971 Buren conceived one of his first large scale in situ pieces for an exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Peinture-Sculpture (Painting-Sculpture) focused on the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright architecture and the building’s orientation around an open spiral ramp. The museum’s open central area, known as the rotunda, is topped by a circular skylight. Daniel Buren’s proposal involved hanging a 66 x 32 ft. canvas banner with his signature vertical stripes in alternating white and blue. The work would bisect the rotunda from top to bottom. As the viewers traversed the circular ramps, at times they would see a flat expanse of canvas, similar to a large painting. But as they continued around, the banner could also be experienced as a sculptural object. The project was indeed in situ; it specifically addressed the museum’s imposing architecture and transformed the way it functioned. Buren’s work engendered criticism from several other artists in the exhibition. Before the official opening, it was removed. Buren’s current in situ work at the Guggenheim continues the dialogue between the artist and the museum that began more than thirty years ago.

-Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York

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