Page 50 - Studio International - September October 1975

NOTES 0\ WORK I\ CO\NECTIO\ WITH THE PLACES
WHERE IT IS I\STALLED, TAKEN BETWEE\ 1967 A\D
1975, SOVE OF WHICH ARE SPECIALLY SUMMARIZED
HERE FOR THE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1975 EDITIO\ OF

STUDIO I\TERNATIO\AL

Daniel Buren

SINCE THE duration of its exhibition. come down to a bid for isolation,
RENAISSANCE Now let's exhibit a bit of bread in a extraction from reality, in fact once
baker's and it will be very difficult, if not again making on another scale one's own
We can speak of the internal impossible, to distinguish it from the little picture.
architecture of a painting, or of any other bits of bread. Now let's exhibit
other work of art. a work of art - of any kind - in a Museum : TENSION-CRISIS
This architecture of the work, the way can we really distinguish it from other It seems to me that it is much more a
in which it is constructed from its frame, works of art ? matter of showing what a work will imply
the canvas and what is expressed on it immediately in a given place, and
(or beneath it), has an exclusive DESTRUCTION, perhaps, thanks finally to the work, what
development which, since the EXISTENCE, FRAGMENT the place will imply.
Renaissance, has not ceased to distance it The crisis between the function of the
further and further from the A work taking into consideration the Museum (architecture) and that of Art
architecture, place in which the work place in which it is shown 'exhibited, (visual object) will appear dialectically
becomes known. cannot be moved elsewhere and will have from the tension thus created.
It can be said that the history of to disappear at the end of its exhibition.
The idea of disappearance through
Modern Art (in particular) is the destruction opens a breach in the THE NARCISSISTIC
history, recounted and repeated, of the DISCOURSE
internal architecture of the work, seen dominant artistic ideology which wants
simultaneously as content and container. a work to be immortal and therefore The radical questioning of the
indestructible by definition, in any case
However, 'the work of art only exists, architectural limits in which the work
can only be seen, in the context of the in the surroundings 'shelter of the is installed - if it does not break them
Museum 'Gallery surrounding it, the Museum. escapes on the other hand the sclerotic
This indicates one of the difficulties
Museum Gallery for which it was encountered by any work of art which limits of the work of art and its
destined and to which however no would not take into account, which would narcissistic discourse. In fact, the
special attention is paid.' (Extract from not respect this clause to be able to be pseudo-freedom of a work under the
Limites Critiques, October 1970). pretext that it can be transported from
protected - but would, on the here to there, anywhere, from one
THE HISTORY STILL TO contrary, take its unique form of exhibition to another, regardless of the
existence from its individual and
BE MADE SHOWS ITSELF continual destruction. Moreover, the architecture of the place in which it is
The history still to be made will take implication of the place of exhibition, as displayed, presupposes either that this
architecture is familiar, or that it is being
into consideration the place (the an integral part of the work, fragments deliberately ignored.
architecture) in which a work comes to the afore-mentioned work into as many
rest (develops) as an integral part of the occasions as there are places used. THE CUBE. WHITE.
work in question and all the consequences IDEALISM
such a link implies. RADICALLY, To know the architecture without
It is not a question of ornamenting DIALECTICALLY
(disfiguring or embellishing) the place having seen it is to accept working a
priori in the context of an aseptic and
(the architecture) in which the work is Every place radically imbues (so-called) neutral place, cubic, vertical
installed, but of indicating as precisely (formally, architecturally,
as possible the way the work belongs in sociologically, politically) with its walls, horizontal, white floors and
ceiling. This architecture is the well-
the place and vice versa, as soon as the meaning the object (work /creation) known kind, since it is more or less what
latter is shown. shown there. Art in general refuses to be
implied a priori and so pretends to ignore is found in all the museums and
A BIT OF BREAD or reject the draconian role imposed by galleries of the Western World, a place
the Museum (the Gallery), a role both architecturally adapted to the needs of
An empty Museum or Gallery means cultural and architectural. the market implied and allowed by such
nothing, to the extent that it can at any To reveal this limit (this role), the a transportable commodity.
time' be transformed into a gym or a object presented and its place of display This white and 'neutral' cube is
baker's, without changing what will take must dialectically imply one another. therefore not as innocent as all that, but
place there or will be sold there, in terms is in fact the value-giving repository
of works of art in the future, since the IT IS NOT A MATTER OF already often mentioned. Certain artists
social status will also have changed. CREATING ONE'S OWN consistent in their work, who know that
Placing/Exhibiting a work of art in a their work can only be interpreted in a
baker's will in no way change the MUSEUM place like the one described above, have
function of the aforementioned baker's, So it is not a matter of creating one's places of exhibition specially built inside
which will never change the work of art own environment, which at best would which do not correspond to these norms,
into a bit of bread either. come down to pushing the problem to cubic and immaculate spaces. They
Placing/Exhibiting a bit of bread in a one side rather than facing it. It is not a thereby demonstrate that their work does
Museum will in no way change the matter of creating one's own Museum, indeed depend on architecture, but not
function of the aforementioned Museum, either architecturally or culturally, under just any one, since it cannot submit to
but the latter will change the bit of bread the pretext of escaping from any other which is not cubic or white :
into a work of art, at least for the MUSEUMS, which once again would ideal.

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