About the Work
The installation 'Les Portes' (1985) consists of Daniel Buren's characteristic stripes: precisely 8.7 centimetres wide in red and white as well as in blue and white. The stripes were applied to the fabric using the silkscreen process, and individual sections of fabric subsequently hand-painted white. The nine wall elements are arranged in sequence as gates which the visitor can walk through, thus creating a path. Buren describes his artistic work as painting at the zero point. He refuses do portrayals or even representations of real relationships, preferring instead to address painting in the context of its aesthetic and economic functionality. In addition to the negation of authorial and referential aspects, he simultaneously traces painting back to a real object, which is reflected as part of an architectural and political whole. The institutional requirements and their purpose are problematised through the artistic interventions.
