Daniel Buren’s artworks are intrinsically site-specific, making explicit the connection between the work and its physical or architectural context. He develops these installations in situ, responding to his experience of the space. For his exhibition at Modern Art Oxford in 2007, the gallery set us the challenge of creating a publication which would be ready for the opening night, and include photography of this latest work, which he had produced in the gallery over a very short space of time ahead of the exhibition’s opening.
We worked with Daniel to devise a folder-and-insert format for the publication, the form of which was dictated both by the constraints of his infamous 8.7 cm stripe, and the required number of sections and dividers. We arrived together at a brightly coloured, mathematical solution. The contents of the folders also contributed to an archive of all of his projects in the UK to date.
In an interview with Phyllis Rosenzweig in December 1988, Buren explains that his stripe motif, and the restriction to 8.7 cm in their width, originated from the French linen cloth he used in his early works. He mentions that 8.7 cm is also said to be the average distance between the pupils in the eyes of an average human being.
