Daniel Buren: Occupying the Page

The Eye of the Storm, Daniel Buren's current exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum, shows how aggressive graphics can be. In 1971, Buren hung a 65 x 32 foot black-and-white striped banner from the skylight of the Guggenheim Museum to the bottom of the first ramp. The work, named Peinture-Sculpture, was removed after complaints by other artists that it obstructed views of their own art. It hung for one day.

Today, Buren is back at the Guggenheim with a vengeance. His work occupies the entire museum and transforms Frank Lloyd Wright's legendary rotunda space. Entering, you find all light blocked off, as you encounter the scaffolding supporting the first, and most stunning, site-specific piece, the enormous Around the Corner (2000-05). Cutting halfway into Wright's powerful void, two massive walls, faced with large mirrored panes, rise at right angles to the famous Wright skylight, or oculus, now colored purple and white. Short, bright green stripes of equal size, about 7 inches, are spaced along the rim of the parapets. There are no paintings on the ramps; the museum is aggressively, totally, occupied by Buren. Only the Thannhauser galleries still show the permanent collection of Klees, Picassos, and Modiglianis, once shocking, now timid, opposite Buren's transparent bands of purple, green, yellow, white or blue transparent glass triangles of The Single Freize, on the fourth floor, and the same hues in circles, arcs and lines of The Double Freize, looking over Fifth Avenue from the third floor.

Leaving the last ramp, you see on the second floor gallery Buren's paintings of red and white, orange and white, blue and white—stripes. Stripes are what Buren calls his “visual tool.” His controversial installation, The Two Plateaus (1985-6), at the Palais Royale garden in Paris, dispersed 260 short grey-and-white striped columns over the open space. It is his “signature style.” Buren uses the essential elements of graphic design: black on white, color on white. Strong contrasts, geometric shapes, line and scale are his tools. His clear colors could come out of the Pantone color swatch book.

Buren is an affable Frenchman, now in his 60s, who speaks knowingly about Wright's museum. His stated intention is to relate his work to Wright's architecture. But his insistence on dominating it raises questions. When one artist places his art on another's art, how much does the new art harm or help the original? This issue recently came up when Christo and Jeanne-Claude installed The Gates on another work, Vaux and Olmsted's magnificent plan for Central Park. Did they enhance it, or diminish it?

Graphic designers work all the time with other artists. They use illustrations and photographs, and often have to place them on grids made by other art directors. They may need to design sign systems for a building they don't like. Here in New York, the major renovation of the New York Public Library Beaux Arts building in 1981 included a modern sign system. Graphic identity signs and banners for Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and for the Museum of Natural History are examples of other successful integrations. The starting point is not always a clean white page.

I'm curious to know how designers view Buren's interaction with architect Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark. After seeing it, what do you think? Does it fulfill Buren's stated intention of “holding a dialog with the architecture?” Or is it an aggressive takeover of another artist's territory? Is it a new, wonderful use of the museum? Is it a challenge that succeeds?

And, as a last thought, what has the lapse of time to do with the acceptance of art? In 2005, artists who were rejected in 1971 (Buren) and 1979 (Christo and Jeanne-Claude) are given sensational exhibition space. How has the social environment changed to permit such major turnabouts? Remembering the era, I can recall that a major characteristic of the 1970s, a violent decade, was the will to impose “law and order.” Officials in all positions anxiously attempted to “keep the lid” on outbreaks of protest which were erupting everywhere. Demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which had taken place since the late '60s, resulted in four students being killed by National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio, inciting further protests at campuses across the country. I remember being at a faculty meeting during that period when a student stormed in demanding we disband in protest of the Cambodian bombings. Anti-Nixon demonstrations, anti-Vietnam marches, sit-ins and strikes, demands for feminist rights, gay rights, environmental changes, were constant. The mindset of those in authority was to frantically say “no” to everything that looked like potential trouble. Innovative artwork fell victim to that mindset; it was too big and too bold. But it turned out to be benevolent; the world did not come to an end after the Christos wrapped the Reichstag or Buren covered the Palais Royale garden. It seems that the artist had not been the enemy after all.

The Eye of the Storm is on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City from March 25 through June 8, 2005.