Daniel Buren to create new permanent artwork at Tottenham Court Road Tube station
Date uploaded: June 22, 2011
Art on the Underground is pleased to announce that the renowned French artist Daniel Buren has been selected to create a new permanent installation for the upgraded Tube station at Tottenham Court Road.
The rebuilding of Tottenham Court Road station is due to be completed in 2016. At least 200,000 people per day are expected to use the station. Customers will be able to experience the dramatic Buren installation as they enter and move through the station. The new artwork will become a major feature of the Oxford Street entrance and ticket hall.
Buren will create a colourful series of large scale diamond and circle shapes that will be fixed to the station's internal glass walls. Designed in his trademark striped vinyl, the shapes will allow light to pass through to keep the public areas bright. A cabinet containing the 'parents' of the forms that are transforming the station's surfaces - a set of Buren's shapes in sculptural, 3D form - will be installed in the ticket hall.
Tamsin Dillon, Head of Art on the Underground, said: "It is very exciting to be working with one of the world's great artists, renowned for his memorable installations - something that will enhance the new ticket hall at this key station and give customers a chance to think beyond their fast-paced London journeys. The Art on the Underground Programme can offer passengers a moment of contemplation while travelling across the Capital."
Buren's is the second piece of permanent artwork to be installed at Tottenham Court Road station, complementing the now iconic 1984 mosaic designs by the late Eduardo Paolozzi. The majority of the Paolozzi mosaics are being preserved in the upgraded station, whilst some smaller sections will be carefully removed and displayed elsewhere.
Famous for his site specific, bold and energetic works, Buren is a worthy addition to the station's artistic heritage. Now with over 2,000 artworks worldwide, the artist has punctuated the last forty years with some thought-provoking public art projects, often using stripes and geometric forms to frame public spaces. His best known and most controversial piece, installed in 1986, is Les Deux Plateaux, or Les Colonnes de Buren (Buren's Columns), a 3,000 m2 area of variously truncated, striped columns in the great courtyard of the Palais Royal, Paris. The installation provoked intense debate over the integration of contemporary art into historic buildings.
Buren's most recent work is a temporary piece for the new Turner Contemporary in Margate. Borrowing and Multiplying the Landscape focuses the viewer on the site where JMW Turner once painted, framing the view through the vast sea-facing window. Buren has traced a huge circle on the glass and then 'filled in' the gaps in the square window with transparent yellow, striped vinyl, directing our gaze. Mirrors at either end of the work create infinite reflections of the seascape. A retrospective of Buren's work is also currently on show at the contemporary art museum Centre Pompidou-Metz. Echos, Work in situ will run until September 2011.