Daniel Buren
Like Child’s Play

‘For me, colour is pure thought, and there­fore com­plete­ly inex­press­ible, every bit as abstract as a math­e­mat­i­cal for­mu­la or a philo­soph­i­cal con­cept’ Daniel Buren

Like Child’s Play is inspired by Ger­man edu­ca­tion­al the­o­rist Friedrich Wil­helm August Frö­bels. Con­sist­ing of 100 blocks, arch­es, tri­an­gles and ped­i­ments, Buren plays with scale so that the objects which as chil­dren we tow­ered over now dwarf us. 

Through­out his career, Buren has cre­at­ed art­works that com­pli­cate the rela­tion­ship between art and the struc­tures that frame it. His work ques­tions how space can be used, appro­pri­at­ed, and revealed both phys­i­cal­ly and socially.

Daniel Buren has exhib­it­ed many times at the Venice Bien­nale, win­ning the Gold­en Lion in 1986. His work has been the focus of exhi­bi­tions at the Cen­tre Pom­pi­dou in Paris and the Solomon R Guggen­heim Muse­um in New York. Buren’s career spans five decades of inter­ven­tions, con­tro­ver­sial crit­i­cal texts, thought-pro­vok­ing pub­lic art projects and engag­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions with artists from across generations.