Luminous Disks: Daniel Buren’s installation at Monumenta 2012 in Paris. (Image by HWL)
First impressions of Daniel Buren‘s Excentrique(s) Travail In Situ installation at the Grand Palais for the annual Monumenta show were ho-hum. The whole set up felt a little bit …well…crafty…and not in a good way. (We might define ‘bad crafty’ as, say, a pointless box given a decoupage make-over using left-over magazines from a doctor’s office, and not in an ironic way.)
Coloured spheres: Monumenta in Paris. (Image by HWL)
The artist who has, ahem, earned his stripes creating site specific art work, such as the Les Deux Plateaux in Palais-Royal, Paris, has created a false ceiling of transparent, umbrella-like disks that form a sub-level beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais. The effect is immediately frustrating – the visitor is largely robbed of one of the venue’s best features – a superb sense of space, both vast and grandiose. The summer show is not called Monumenta for nothing – last year’s installation, Leviathan, by Anish Kapoor was a hella whopper and the better for it. In contrast, Buren’s work feels bitsy, fussy, and a little bit twee; and then the sun came out.
The cellophane effect: Daniel Buren at the Grand Palais, Paris. (Image by HWL)
With the lights on, so to speak, the show went from being pretty naff to being kind of fun.The 377 coloured disks create a kaleidoscope that reflect and play with the light pouring from the roof-top. In this case, Buren has created something of an Alice-in-Wonderland effect; we find ourselves to be miniature pieces inside the kaleidoscope. Moving through the work creates new vistas and interactions with forms, colour and shadow.
Light Dancers: coloured disks reminiscent of crazy casino carpet; there’s no clocks here either so you’ll have to tell the time by the sun. (Image by HWL)
In many ways, it’s a cheap trick. In other ways, it’s a reminder that simple ideas can be the best ones. Pity about those trademark stripey pillars – they feel clunky and out of place in this ballroom of light. Our tip: go when the sun is shining. Exhibition runs until June 21, 2012. For details see here.
Grand Palais: Daniel Buren’s coloured spheres mushroom below the vast canopy of the Grand Palais in Paris. (Image by HWL)
