buren, for old time's sake
r.l. whyte
here... -Ryan]
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"Since to paint is..."
Since to paint is a game.
Since to paint is to match or mismatch colors.
Since to paint is to apply (consciously or not) rules of
composition.
Since to paint is to valorise the gesture.
Since to paint is to represent the exterior (or interpret it, or
appropriate it, or contest it, or present it).
Since to paint is to propose a springboard for the imagination.
Since to paint is to illustrate interiority.
Since to paint is a justification.
Since to paint is useful for something.
Since to paint is to paint flowers, women, eroticism, the everyday
environment, art, Dada, psychoanalysis, the Vietnam War, in the service of
aestheticism.
WE ARE NOT PAINTERS.
Declared, January 3, 1967, 11 avenue du President Wilson.
Paris, January 1, 1967.
Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni
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from an interview with Andre Parinaud, 1968
DB:...I believe that we [BMPT] are the only ones to be able to revindicate
one's right to be a "viewer" in the sense that we are the only ones to
present something which has no didactic intention, which would not make
the viewer "dream", which would not be a "stimulant". Every individual can
dream for himself and doubtlessly far better than through the intervention
of the artist, however great he may be. The artist appeals to laziness.
His function is as an emollient. He is "great", gifted", "a genius" to
others, which is a contemptuous or superior way of considering these
"others." The artist brings beauty, dreams, suffering to their homes,
therefore these "others" which I myself consider to be, a priori, just as
gifted as the artist himself, must themselves find their beauty, their
dream. In a word, become adults. The only thing which one can make after
having seen a canvas such as ours, is total revolution.
...
DB.:...The viewer who has the sentiment of "la joie de vivre" in looking
at Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe instead of going for a picnic himself
in the woods of Saint-Germain appears to me to be a dangerous lunatic....
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Lexicon
Art: All that is shown outside of its original context.
Synonym: anti-art, distraction, illusion, reactionism, idealism.
Example: "Reality is not very exciting, therefore there is art."
Artist: Individual outside of his own context.
Synonym: God.
Example: "Ah! The artist!"
Painting: See Art.
Please refer to this lexicon with every use of any of these three words.
[1968]
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[From a text read by Buren, shown on videotape, in an otherwise empty
gallery, for his show at Jack Wendler Gallery, London, March 9-30 1973].
"...All installations in galleries are in fact decorations of those
galleries. Today, this particular exhibition for which you have specially
come will be visible and only visible if you express the desire to see
it. This exhibition is not only limited and defined by these walls, the
system, the intentions of the artist, the date, etc.
It depends entirely on your will to make this exhibition possible.
It does not suffice that a work be made; it is necessary that you wish to
see it. If you would like to see my work and if you would like to know
more about it, Jack Wendler,the director of the gallery, will be at your
disposal to present you with some of my paintings. It is only in this way
that the exhibition of my work will be truly complete...."
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