Photo-souvenir: Peinture acrylique blanche sur tissu rayé blanc et rouge, 1971
- Medium
- Acrylic on woven red and white fabric
- Dimensions
- Stretched fabric: 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 x 7/8 in. (200.03 x 200.03 x 2.22 cm)
- Accession Number
- 99.5
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Purchase with funds provided by Robert H. Halff
Since the mid-1960s Daniel Buren’s work has featured the same basic pattern of vertical, alternating stripes, 8.7 centimeters, or about 3.5 inches, wide. Photo-souvenir is a prefabricated red-and-white striped cloth on which Buren has painted a single white stripe. Leaving the piece unframed and propping it against the wall are the artist’s ways of suggesting that the surrounding museum acts as the work’s frame, or context. By using mass-produced awning fabric instead of canvas, Buren further emphasizes the context of the art institution. Encountered in a domestic or commercial context, this material would simply be awning fabric, but since the viewer encounters it in a museum, it appears as art.