Beginning with the permanent work Le banderuole colorate, (colored weather vanes), work in situ, Trivero, 2007, created for ALL’APERTO, this book (Mousse Publishing, 2014, 80 pp.) takes a comprehensive look at the public artworks that Daniel Buren has made using ephemeral materials. These range from his Affichages Sauvages (unauthorized postings) of the late sixties, to the many site-specific projects involving fabric, flags and textiles he has made in the following decades, which lend visibility to a natural element of the landscape, wind – “like leaves on the trees”. The volume includes a newly compiled, detailed list of the artist’s works in fabric from 1970 to the present.
The preface by Anna Zegna and introduction by Andrea Zegna are followed by a wide-ranging conversation between Daniel Buren, Barbara Casavecchia and Vincent Honoré, curator at David Roberts Art Foundation, London. Buren addresses themes that are pivotal to his career, like the “repetition of differences with a view to a sameness”, the relationship to be established with place and viewer, and the “specific duration” of the work in the public sphere.
