Daniel Buren, The Colored Screens

UPPER LEVEL

Daniel Buren

A work by French-born Daniel Buren, “The Colored Screens” is a transformative installation that blends light, color, and space to redefine the surrounding architecture. Buren — a celebrated conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor — is the winner of numerous awards, including the International Award for best artist in Stuttgart, the Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and the Premium Imperiale in Tokyo. His art has been displayed in such prestigious landmarks as the Grand Palais and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, as well as New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
Suspended above Treats Food Hall, the dynamic artwork consists of 16 large plexiglass panels arranged in a striking square. Measuring 39 ½ x 39 ½ inches each, the panels feature Buren’s trademark use of color and geometric shapes, including stripes. The screens’ brilliant hues along with their light-filtering properties, result in reflections and shadows that infuse the encircling facades. From ocean blues and sunny yellows to mossy greens and fiery splashes of red, Buren’s work not only casts shifting tones on the architecture, it brings the outdoors in.
When asked about his use of stripes, a shape the artist favors, Buren notes that while initially he used them to establish neutrality in his art, “...over time people started identifying the stripes with my name... It has become my signature.”