Garden Stories: Voile/Toile–Toile/Voile (Sail/Canvas–Canvas/Sail)
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  • Garden Stories

    A work by Daniel Buren

  • In June 2018, artist Daniel Buren’s paintings set sail on Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  • Rigged to boats from the Minneapolis Sailing Center, Sail/Canvas – Canvas/Sail made its US premiere in the City of Lakes.

  • In the 1960s, Buren was inspired by striped awning fabric he found at a market in Paris. He has been working with the pattern ever since. The bands of color are always the same precise width.

  • The artist describes the stripes as “visual tools” that draw our attention to the site or architecture where they are displayed.

  • For more than 50 years, Buren has placed his works in public spaces ranging from billboards, bridges, train stations, and city squares to lakes, rivers, and seas.

  • First presented at Wannsee Lake in Berlin in 1975, Sail/Canvas – Canvas/Sail has been shown around the world, including sites in France, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

  • This artwork always occurs in two parts, beginning its life cycle fastened to a boat, sailing on water.

  • For Minneapolis, the artist re-envisioned the work for boats with two sails. These were specially produced with stripes in nine colors.

  • Black, red, orange, yellow, green, navy blue, sky blue, magenta, and purple.

  • The event begins as Buren’s works are hoisted onto the sailboats.

  • Bold and breathtaking yet slow and mesmerizing, the paintings set sail on the open water.

  • Tacking and jibing in a zigzag pattern, 18 teen sailors worked in pairs as skipper and crew. The race lasted for more than an hour.

  • At the end of the competition, the winning sequence of boats was noted by the artist, from first to last place.

  • The paintings then came to the Cowles Pavilion in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

  • They fly in the order the boats arrived in the race—first to last place, from left to right.

  • “They are canvases that sail the wall, they expose and exhibit themselves as such,” says Buren. “But if you go back to their source, they are and will be for a long time to come, painting setting sail.”

  • See More Garden Stories

    Daniel Buren (France, b. 1938)
    Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile (Sail/Canvas-Canvas/Sail), 1975/2018
    artist-designed Club 420 sails
    Work in situ
    Courtesy the artist and Bortolami, New York

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  • The Walker Art Center’s commission and presentation of Daniel Buren: Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile is made possible with generous support from the Ronning Family Foundation and VIA Art Fund.

    The project is presented by the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board. The sailboat race is presented in collaboration with the Minneapolis Sailing Center.

    The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a project of the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board

  • To Align: 44 pillars, work in situ, May 2017, MDF, paint and self-adhesive black vinyl 8,7 cm wide, indoor, various dimensions, detail. Image courtesy of the artist and Bortolami, New York.

    Electricity Fabric Paint Paper Vinyl… Works in Situ & Situated Works from 1968 to 2013, 2013, Petzel, New York, Installation view. Image courtesy of the artist, Bortolami, New York, and Petzel Gallery, New York.

    Les Deux Plateaux, permanent sculpture in situ, 1985–1986, Cour d’honneur du Palais-Royal, Paris. Detail. Image courtesy of the artist and Bortolami, New York. ©Daniel Buren / ADAGP, Paris.

    Painting-Sculpture, work in situ, February 1971, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Detail. Image courtesy of the artist and Bortolami, New York. ©Daniel Buren / ADAGP, Paris.