Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Daniel Buren the 74 year old French conceptual artist, classified as an abstract minimalist known best for using regular, contrasting maxi stripes to integrate the visual surface and architectural space, notably historical, landmark architecture. Among his chief concerns is the ‘scene of production’ as a way of presenting art and highlighting facture (the process of ‘making’ rather than for example, mimesis or representation of anything but the work itself). The work is site specific installation, having a relation to its setting in contrast to prevailing ideas of a work of art standing alone. Buren has been profiled in an article by Roberta Smith for the New York Times titled ‘Daniel Buren: ‘Electricity Fabric Paint Paper Vinyl …’, Smith states “[Buren]  who reduced painting to awning stripes printed on canvas or paper some 40 years ago, has probably eked more mileage out of this signature end-of-painting motif than any artist could logically expect. …Buren shows the latest versions of site-specific works in vertically striped paper that date back three and four decades. These pieces are, in effect, intermittent expanses of wallpaper that alter our sense of a space and create a nice graphic, even decorative punch. …Buren takes up the striped canvas again, but with several twists. In one he layers the canvas with white-striped Plexiglas to block or expose the colored stripes beneath. In the other group glam-rock chic prevails: the canvas is luminescent, cut with a curved or a diagonal edge that is lined with a glowing strand of fiber optics. Despite their newness, these pieces conjure the early-1960s work of artists like Frank Stella and Robert Mangold; they are arbitrary and conventional, and could be derivative student works that Mr. Buren abandoned to make the site-specific pieces at Petzel. Mr. Buren gets credit for choosing art over ideology, but he has to do more than relearn old tricks.”

Inspired by Roberta Smith, New York Times ow.ly/hYBrJ Image source Français ow.ly/hYBqs

Wade Guyton the 41 year old American artist regarded to be at the forefront of a generation that has been reconsidering both appropriation and abstract art through the 21st-century lens of technology, using Epson inkjet printers and flatbed scanners as tools to make works that act like drawings, paintings, even sculptures. Guyton has  been profiled by Rachel Corbett for Blouin Artinfo in an article titled ‘”A Weird, Perfect Storm”: What’s Behind the Rise of Inkjet Artist Wade Guyton?’  Corbett states “Nobody, it seems, has a bad thing to say about Wade Guyton these days. Critic Roberta Smith called the artist’s current mid-career survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art “beautiful” and “brilliant.” Art advisor Lowell Pettit described him as “a southern gentleman, the sweetest guy you’ll meet.” And perhaps the most generous compliments come from collectors, who have been shelling out upwards of $650,000 for his abstract inkjet prints. …He [] seems to have found an intellectual and financial sweet spot. His timeless, neo-minimalist aesthetic—typewritten Xs, inky monochromes, razor-sharp lines, all manufactured by an Epson inkjet printer—is highly collector-friendly, and his market was strong even before the Whitney exhibition. The intersections between painting and technology in Guyton’s work contribute to a larger historical conversation tied to Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, and Agnes Martin. This is partly why observers bet that Guyton, along with perhaps his frequent collaborator Kelley Walker and Sterling Ruby, have the conceptual chops to outlast their peers.”

Inspired by Rachel Corbett ow.ly/f5vwG image source ArtNet ow.ly/f5vtJ