Textile Works

Beginning with the permanent work Le banderuole colorate (“Colored Weather Vanes”), created in Trivero, Italy for Fondazione Zegna's All'Aperto project, this book 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 since the Eighties, which lend visibility to a natural element of the landscape, wind – “like leaves on the trees”. 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, with across-the-board observations about maintenance, vandalism, spectacularization and performativity. In addition to a rich array of color plates, the book includes a newly compiled, detailed list of the artist's works in fabric from 1970 to the present.