Daniel Buren Les cabanyes de ceràmica i espill

Project curated by Juan de Nieves
Les cabanyes de ceràmica i espill, a project specifically conceived by Daniel Buren for the Espai d’art contemporani de Castelló, turns the spotlight on the museum as an ideological, social and architectural construct.

Throughout more than four decades of work, Buren’s oeuvre has undergone significant transformations on various occasions. In 1984, the artist created the first of his cabanes éclatées at the Konrad Fischer gallery in Düsseldorf. Unlike more recent ones, in which he uses a variety of materials such as mirror, plexiglas or ceramics— in fact, his cabanes in Castelló are covered in this last material —the first huts were created in a simple structure, usually covered with a blue and white striped fabric. A shared feature is that they are all open architectural forms, encouraging the spectator to enter into their private domain. As far as the place they are situated is concerned Buren’s ultimate aspiration would be, in his own words, "to perturb the space".

Buren uses a biological metaphor to compare the space he places his work in with a thoracic cavity in which all elements contract and dilate (explode), not unlike the respiratory organs.

For this project in Castelló, the space is organised with six large 5.65m x 5.65m huts, placed on either side of the EACC’s central mezzanine. Their individual position varies, for they can be arranged in parallel to that central structure or at a 45º angle with it.

Through these huts, visitors will be presented with a new route or tour (both on the ground floor and first floor), passing through a number of doors opening in each one of the huts, which, as is customary for this type of constructions created by Buren, are physically projected/displaced outside of the huts.

The whole surface of each hut is painted in white, with no other architectural concession than that provided by its own cubical geometry. However, the inside is totally covered with ceramics. Each one of the six huts will have an internally homogeneous background, yet each different to the others, being also singularised by -horizontal, vertical, transversal—8.7 cm wide stripes of a new ceramic material. Some of the inner walls of two of the huts will be covered with mirror.

Coinciding with this project, the EACC commissioned the artist with a permanent intervention for the centre’s future cafeteria, set to be opened concurrently with the show.