Daniel Buren Exhibition- Baltic Gateshead

Whilst I was at home in Newcastle for my summer I visited The Baltic Center for Contemporary Arts in Gateshead. I was very excited to go and view their current Daniel Buren exhibition. I feel very privileged to have seen his work first hand as to many he is considered as France’s greatest living artist and one of the most important and influential figures in contemporary art in the last 50 years. 

In the1960s Buren developed a form of conceptual art, which he called a ‘degree zero of painting’, creating works which draw attention to the relationship between art and context. Buren abandoned traditional painting methods and created an 8.7 cm wide vertical stripe, which he used as a visual tool to help him create his work. Made out of different materials the stripes appear in his interventions in museums and galleries. For almost 4 decades he has chosen to work in situ, responding to a particular location and colouring the spaces in which they are created.

While the stripes have become a recognisable and intrinsic element of his practice, recently his works have become more sculptural and architectural in form, experimenting with the use of light and colour.

I was mesmerized whilst walking around the exhibit by all of the colours and shapes that were created. I really like the variety of exhibition because it can look so different depending on where you stand or how the weather outside changes the way that it looks completely. I was really inspired by the whole exhibition by the way he works in such an unconventional way to create something truly magnificent and unique.

Here are some images of the exhibition that I have taken.