Daniel Buren

Voile/Toile - Toile/Voile

(Sail/Canvas–Canvas/Sail)

Miami, Florida
2 December 2024

Images courtesy of Daniel Buren, Voile/Toile - Toile/Voile, situated work, 1975/2024, regatta Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, 23 June 2024. Detail ©DB-ADAGP Paris

curator Dodie Kazanjian

Please join us to experience Daniel Buren’s Voile/Toile–Toile/Voile (Sail/Canvas–Canvas/Sail). 

The work consists of two parts: a race of nine Sunfish sailboats with the artist’s custom-made striped sails, followed at a later date by an exhibition of the sails as paintings. The race will take place on December 2nd  from 2:00-4:00pm in front of the Peréz Art Museum (1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132). 

Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile is one of Daniel Buren’s most significant works. Originally made and enacted in Berlin in 1975 it characteristically deploys the trademark stripes, which Buren refers to as a ‘visual tool’. Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile translates as Sail/Canvas – Canvas/Sail and brings together the opposing traditions of 20th century modernism by alluding to both abstract painting and the readymade. Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile initially starts with a regatta where sailors race boats adorned with the nine Buren sails. Later the sails are taken to be displayed in a gallery or museum. The order of this display is dictated by the order the boats complete the race. This dual element within Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile is significant as the way the sails are seen and used during the regatta is so different form how they are displayed in the gallery. They move from being functional objects operating in the actual world to artworks to be publicly displayed. Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile challenges the viewer’s assumption of the limits of artistic language and its possibility.

The work will be exhibited at the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) at a later date.

Daniel Buren (b. 1938) has been the subject of major museum exhibitions worldwide. He has exhibited in the Venice Biennale more than 10 times and was awarded the Golden Lion in 1986. Buren participated in documenta V, VI, and VII. In 2007, he received the Praemium Imperiale for Painting from Japan and was selected to exhibit at MONUMENTA 2012 at the Grand Palais in Paris. He has been the subject of large-scale, solo exhibitions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, the Art Institute of Chicago, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Bozar in Brussels, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Metz, and Malaga, Guggenheim New York and Bilbao, among countless other institutions. Daniel Buren lives and works in situ.

Presented by Art&Newport in partnership with The Great Elephant Migration and The ReefLine, with special thanks to the Miami Yacht Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club and Sunfish. Sponsored by Xerjoff.