June 8, 2017

Daniel Buren Injects Color Inside Bortolami Gallery’s New Manhattan Space

Daniel Buren’s signature stripes wrap around the existing architecture of Bortolami Gallery’s Walker Street entryway. Image courtesy of Bortolami Gallery.

Daniel Buren has unveiled To Align: works in situ 2017, a site-specific installation at Bortolami Gallery in TriBeCa. Buren’s solo show, his fourth at Bortolami, is the inaugural exhibition at the gallery’s recently redone space by studioMDA founder Markus Dochantschi.
 

A forest of red columns greets visitors. Image courtesy of Bortolami Gallery.

“Buren took advantage of the fact that nobody was familiar with the space to devise an installation that would both react to the existing architecture and disrupt it,” says gallery owner Stefania Bortolami. Buren’s signature vertical stripes wrap around the entrance’s Corinthian columns, where they will remain until 2021.
 

Sunlight paints bright, bold, slanting stripes on the gallery’s rear wall. Image courtesy of Bortolami Gallery.

In addition to placing color transparencies on the skylights, the Observatory of Light artist installed 44 rectangular columns throughout the space. Each column boasts red, blue, yellow, and black-and-white striped sides. Buren oriented the columns to face the same direction by color, offering an immersive experience that transforms the space’s dominant shade depending on where visitors stand.
 

A lone black Corinthian column stands beneath colorful skylights. Image courtesy of Bortolami Gallery.

To Align: works in situ 2017 will run until June 24th at 39 Walker Street in New York.
 

Buren’s hallmark combination of vertical stripes and primary colors form illusory walls along the installation’s diagonal pathways. Image courtesy of Bortolami Gallery.

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