Daniel Buren

Opening 7th June 2008 Preview (invitation only) 29th May 2008

With the debut of ALL’APERTO (OUTDOORS), the Fondazione Zegna, a non-profit-making institution that has been supporting projects in the cultural, social, medical and environmental sphere since 2000, is expanding its field of action by making a contribution to contemporary art as well.

The project, curated by Andrea Zegna and Barbara Casavecchia, is being launched at Trivero, a small town in the Italian province of Biella, close to the Alps. It wishes to open up new ways of seeing, and therefore living in this area, thus pursuing the spirit embraced by the industrialist Ermenegildo Zegna, who from the 1930s onwards carried out a series of developments aimed at bringing new vitality to the mountains and the people of the local community. Today Trivero is at the foot of a vast natural oasis, stretching for over 100 sq km, open free o charge to the public all year round.

ALL’APERTO is conceived as a continuum of site-specific projects with a reduced impact on the environment that attempts to focus on the concept of visibility. The artist invited to carry out its first phase is Daniel Buren (Boulogne-Billancourt, 1938). A Conceptual artist of worldwide fame, Buren has been staging public works, installations and exhibitions since the sixties that are based on an outil visuel (‘visual tool’) of disarming simplicity: a pattern – always the same – of vertical white stripes that are 8.7 cm wide and alternate with other colours. By applying this motif to all sorts of surfaces, he brings into question the relationship between the uniqueness of the work of art and its context, prompting the observer to pay new attention to a specific place; and consequently to its formal, social, and economic conditions.

With Le banderuole colorate, lavoro in situ, 2007, Trivero (The Coloured Weather Vanes, Work in Situ, 2007, Trivero), Buren frames the perimeter of the panoramic terraces of the historic Lanificio (‘Wool Mill’) with a rainbow of 135 flags, fluctuating between green and blue in a recurring scheme of seven Pantone shades. It’s a ‘full dressing’ that performs the simple task of indicating the direction of the wind and recording the change in the seasons, as well as transforming an architecture that is deeply familiar to all the town’s inhabitants.

Daniel Buren’s installation will be on permanent display from May 29th 2008. The press preview will be followed by a public opening, on June 7th. On that occasion, the roofs of the Lanificio (usually closed) will be made accessible to the public, offering a stunning view of the mountains.

The artist selected for the next phase of ALL’APERTO, scheduled for 2009, is Alberto Garutti (Galbiate, Italy, 1948).

Under the patronage of the Municipality of Trivero, the Province of Biella and the Piedmont Region, ALL’APERTO is supported by an international Advisory Board whose members are Tom van Gestel (artistic manager, SKOR, Amsterdam), Salvatore Lacagnina (director of the Galleria Civica di Montevergini), Michelangelo Pistoletto (artist and founder of Cittadellarte, Biella) and Catia Riccaboni (Culture Department, Fondation de France).

Daniel Buren
Kuratoren: Andrea Zegna, Barbara Casavecchia