The French artist Daniel Buren has told the French daily newspaper Le Progrès that he is considering taking legal action against the city of Lyon over the disrepair of his monumental work in its main square, the place des Terreaux. “Without a legal attack, I think—I’m convinced, even—that [the city] won’t want to do anything,” he said in an interview published 18 August.
The work is a collaboration with the architect and urban planner Christian Drevet, made up of 69 small embedded fountains and 14 pillars on a granite base arranged in Buren’s characteristic grid style. The artist explained that the decay of the work began shortly after it was built in 1994, as trucks entered the pedestrian square, disrupting the placement of the granite slabs and the fountains with their weight.
Buren said he has not had news from the city over plans for the site since 2008, when the mayor Gérard Collomb assured him that refurbishing the square was on his agenda. “At the point we are now, I would ask for this square to be completely destroyed,” he added.
A spokeman for Lyon, meanwhile, has told the AFP that the city’s budget will cover the needed repairs to Buren’s installation, but that restoration work must be carried first on the square’s historic Bartholdi fountain.
“In Tokyo, where I also did an installation, the space is just as I left it 25 years ago,” Buren challenged in his interview. “It’s a question of culture and maintenance.”