Page 41 - Studio International - March 1970

that this commentary is the illustration of the the street, on the outside wall (or the opposite) study' of his proposition. In the context of the
text which is its subject. without interruption. In the presentation exhibition/catalogue the critical aspect of the
itself there is no repetition (except of course text was emphasized. In other respects,
VISIBILITY in the internal structure). It is the continuity having already faulted the perfect ordering
When, for Seth Siegelaub's summer exhibi- of the presentation which lays emphasis upon of the book through the 'surprising' content
tion 1969, Buren covered, over a period of the difference, and this was precisely differ- of the text, Buren, in presenting his own
more than three months, a new hoarding each ence in continuity, in the continuity itself of proposition, turns the tables on the exhibition,
week in Paris, he gave his proposition an two different symbols, which are 'interior' providing `something to see'. In this way the
evident visibility, by virtue of the fact that it and 'exterior'. conceptual contiguity is broken.
was thus presented; but the particular visi- At the same time as `Prospect 69'—an exhibi-
bility involved is crucial. It is, in effect, the tion entitled 'Position—Proposition' took 'place' ANONYMITY
visibility of visibility which is, in its appearing, at the Konrad Fischer Gallery (Düsseldorf ) Anonymity was concretely put to the test on
the proposition itself. In March and April with the object of gathering together in a two occasions. The first was at Lugano at the
1968 Buren had already undertaken his first `recapitulation' the exact situation of the Flaviana Gallery in December 1967, when
pasting-up in the streets of Paris, and in this locations where, in the course of three weeks, people at random were invited to paint the
presentation the obvious was made evident `vertically striped paper' was stuck (thus two outer stripes of a vertically striped fabric
only because visible. During the summer of including the Kunsthalle and Prospect). The and by doing so to 'appropriate' the work, in
1969 the location of where 'pink and white addresses were given according to the `social every sense indentical with that of another
vertical stripes are visible' was announced function' of the location. These were a who might have been Buren. In Seattle in
each week in a weekly paper. There was thus museum, a hotel, various streets, a collector's September 1969 seven people covered the
a basic visibility, to which every passer-by house, etc.... If indifference to location is indi- walls of the town and of the museum with
was a witness, and a specific visibility of which cated thus, it is because the difference of the vertically striped paper. In the catalogue their
those who came specifically to see in response location is itself brought to light by the names appeared as participants in the exhibi-
to the announcement were spectators. But presence of the thing, endlessly cancelled out tion. In Vancouver the list will be longer by
witness and spectator found themselves con- in its commencement. the addition of several new names.
fronted by a like visibility of the proposition.
In the same way, in November 1969, at the INTERRUPTION ETHICS
Buren Gallery in Stockholm, an outdoor For the course of one month in October 1968 The exhibition in Berne in March 1969,
public, in the street, lined the windows which the public was invited to the Galleria Apol- `When Attitudes become Form', rode under
were covered with vertically striped paper linaire in Milan, and the gallery was closed, the banner of the freedom of the artist. A
while, on the other side of the same windows, the door being stuck with vertically striped freedom rediscovered in respect to form. A
another gallery public found themselves con- paper which prohibited entry. The gallery practical freedom also, since everyone had the
fronted with vertically striped paper covering was not absolutely closed, for its possibility, right to do what seemed to him to be best for
the inside of the same windows. or impossibility, as a gallery was made evi- his art. This was, moreover, an important
The proposition itself involves a visibility dent by its material, physical closure. But the local scandal. At the same time Buren, apart
which it both assembles and opens and which use of the proposition as a means of closing from the exhibition (uninvited), stuck paper
is revealed as illuminating in any location. the gallery calls in question the gallery as `a over the walls and hoardings of the town. At
habit of art' and leads to the breaking of the five in the morning, he was roused from his
CONTINUITY OF DIFFERENCE habit, a necessity born of the proposition bed by the police, led to the police station
At 'Prospect 69' Buren covered with vertical itself in so far as it heralds rupture, and is for and locked in a cell. Such is the value of
stripes a surface of more than six by eight that reason absolutely unhabitual. freedom when one is not an artist.
metres—exactly the same as that which he `Interruption' was the title of an event at the The Centre National d'Art Contemporain
had covered with similar papers for 'Prospect Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, in April 1969. organized in December 1969 an exhibition
68'. The colour of the stripes alone changed. There, Buren's proposition was intimately entitled `artistic interventions in the street'.
This is a matter of importance, since if some involved, by its absence. The gallery was left in Buren refused the invitation offered him to
play can be made with the fact of doing its normal state, with a mixed show of gallery participate. In spite of this, his name was
exactly the same thing in the same place after artists. The only addition was an audio- used and lent to another person who, for the
an interval of a year, the fact that the colour visual apparatus in which were placed eight occasion, did 'the same work as him' for a
of the stripes alone has changed indicates that films from which one might choose. These film which was due to be shown at the
this game has been mastered in every way. films were about art, art history, the art museum. Buren immediately sued the CNAC
But this repetition, far from being a game, is world, para-artistic language, etc. . . . Let us and won. The film was destroyed and all the
the bringing to light of a difference which, say these films were a virulent criticism of posters were reprinted without his name. This
centred on a manifest identity, comes to the the system to which art assents. The machine is one way to use the law against an organism
fore in the context of an exhibition. Repeti- was used solely as a medium. Here it is —in the circumstances, emanating from the
tion and difference, two terms which consti- relevant to speak of public reaction, for it was government—which believes itself to be above
tute a fundamental critique of the exhibition of special significance: it was one of scandal- the law.
and of its `subject' (one year), and of art and ized silence. The interruption, the interven- This commentary is not exhaustive. Its divi-
its direction; a critique in which Buren's tion in the comfort of habit, were decidedly sion into parts is intended simply to lay
proposition is itself involved, since it is criticism too severe. It is hard to see oneself unmasked. emphasis on certain points. But all these
as regards the difference and repetition— At such times one stands revealed. This points are, at each new presentation, con-
by which the sameness is make conspicuous comfort, this habit, cannot bear interruption. tained in the proposition; all these points and
— that they exist in relation to. When the first version of the text upon which others, and notably the question of 'view-
The continuity of the difference was equally we are here commenting was published at point' which is presented and revealed by
well indicated at the Wide White Space Leverkusen, it was included in an exhibition Buren's proposition and which, indeed, under-
Gallery, Antwerp, in January 1969, by a long entitled `Conception'. This exhibition/cata- lies all the sections of this report.
line of pasted paper beginning in the interior logue relates to a requirement of art in its
* For a more distant past, 1966-1967, see Studio
of the gallery and extending to the corner of conceptual form. Buren's text is a 'clinical International, January 1969.