Stripes have reoccurred in my work over the years. Not always as bold and uniform as my recent works - Parallel 1/2 but I have explored mostly via an intuitive process, many various forms - to narrow merging stripes as in my exhibition.Emergence (2005) 0r codify/code -defy (2002 using industrial foil to illuminate stripes with transparency and opaqueness.
MARLENE SARROFF
STRIPES IN URBAN / BEACH / INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENTS
PUBLIC ART
sydney REDFERN : A MAJOR STREET ART PROJECT A COLLABORATION BETWEEN PROMINENT ABORIGINAL ARTIST REKO RENNIE AND YOUNG LOCAL ABORIGINAL ARTISTS
PARIS FRANCE
Site-specific installation - Palais Royal, Paris. BY DANIEL BURIN
Les Deux Plateaux (1986)
Artwork description & Analysis: Les Deux Plateaux is a controversial large-scale installation in the inner courtyard of the Palais Royal in Paris. The space used to be a car park, and the work was designed to conceal a number of ventilation shafts in the ground. Buren divided the space into a grid and placed columns of various heights in the center of each square. The columns are covered with Buren's stripes in black and white.
The shape of the columns reflects those used in the classical architecture of the surrounding building, encouraging the viewer's eye to switch between the modern installation and classical architecture. Les Deux Plateaux encourages visitors to reflect on the concept of architectural space and plays with ideas of depth and perception; utility and decoration. Part of the installation also continues underground, where water runs around the bases of some of the columns, which intersect grills.
The work was controversial because some critics felt that the incorporation of a large-scale contemporary work of art would distract from the architecture of the space, and that Buren's unserious striped columns were improper for a royal space. However, this is part of the meaning of the work. By inserting his work into a seat of royalty and subsequently of government, he encourages viewers to consider the bureaucratic functions of the Palais Royal and how art relates to these functions. As the historian Wim Denslagen puts it, the success of Les Deux Plateaux is "due to the fact that Buren, as a Marxist, was in full revolt against the establishment."
The work prompted a debate about how contemporary art should be allowed to interact with historical architecture - a debate that continues to be relevant to this day.