Artist Talk: Daniel Buren

Minneapolis artist Peter Haakon Thompson creates work made to be experienced outdoors, from custom flags hoisted on abandoned poles to icefishing shacks converted into "art shanties" to a polar expedition tent inspired by French artist Daniel Buren. These interests, as well as Thompson's experience as a sailboat racer and a photographer, made him a perfect pick to cover the regatta at the core of Buren's Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile, a public artwork that made its US premiere at the Walker this summer.

In September 1965, Daniel Buren left the Marché Saint-Pierre, a textile market in Paris, with ten meters of linen preprinted with stripes—white alternating with colors—launching a new chapter in his then-young career. Over the following five decades, he utilized stripes in his work—on paintings, wheat-pasted posters, protest signs, banners, and sailboat sails. In conversation with curator Pavel Pyś, he discusses his practice, from these earliest experiments to a signature project that made its US debut at the Walker this summer: Voile/Toile–Toile/Voile (Sail/Canvas–Canvas/Sail), a group of nine striped sails, installed in the Cowles Pavilion in the order their accompanying sailboats finished in a June 23 regatta in nearby Bde Mka Ska.