DANIEL BUREN

“I am interested in books when their purpose or meaning fits with my interest, or when they teach me something or rectify some wrong concept I had, or look beautiful, or make no sense, or are extremely well done, no matter which is the classification or profession of the author.”
– Daniel Buren, Art-Rite, Vol. 14 (1977)

This exhibition, curated by graphic designer Fraser Muggeridge, charts Daniel Buren’s expanded use of the 8.7cm stripe over almost six decades, from the street to the gallery walls and from the canvas to the printed page. Exploring the legacy of the artist’s famous motif – through art works, archival objects and his prodigious publishing and printed matter output – the display attempts an entire history of the stripe as subversive interruption within books, magazines and publications. It begins with Buren’s anonymous contribution to the Prospect 68 catalogue at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf – a double-page spread of green stripes – and ends with a new version of an off-site exhibition of vertically pasted stripes first staged on a billboard in central London in 1972.

Bringing together more than 100 printed items, Pages in situ spans interventions in books, magazines and newspapers, often presented “without name or explanation”, alongside invitations, posters and group and solo exhibition catalogues, as well as dedicated artist books. Variations in colour, sequencing, cut-outs and format all play a role in shaping each item. Across these diverse formats, Buren’s consistent “visual tool” operates as a powerful graphic element, threading through each publication while continually shifting in form and intent. It also features numerous examples of printed material that adhere to the 8.7cm principle, without explicitly displaying stripes, using perhaps the same width for columns of printed text or for the dimensions of reproduced images.

The exhibition also explores Buren’s notion of how he creates all of his works ‘in situ’ and includes examples from the series of six printed posters produced with the Antwerp gallery Wide White Space. These functioned simultaneously as announcement, invite, poster and art work (related to his Affichages Sauvages), being flyposted around and as part of five Buren exhibitions between 1969 and 1974. The artist is also recreating his 1972 billboard work on Shaftesbury Avenue, composed of 8.7 cm-wide white and purple striped paper, reimagining the work for 2026 in cyan for a new site located in nearby Camden at 70 Eversholt Street NW1 1DA, from 1-28 June.

Buren’s expansion of painting into the real world also influenced the exploded and cut paintings shown in the upper gallery (some of which were also made into books afterwards). These fragmentary interventions are both striped installations in three parts, dating from 1968 and 1980, applied directly to the wall, extending to touch the extremities of the space they are being shown in. This exhibition reveals the conceptual and material breadth of Buren’s engagement with the stripe motif and with all things print, foregrounding both the medium and his specific visual vehicle as a critical and adaptable framework for artistic production.