Dear Shaded Viewers,
This year, Art Basel pulsed through all Paris, storming even the calm streets of the 17th arrondissement. An exhibition recast the ordinary into a oneiric space, a total work of art that challenged our sense of place. For the fifth year of the Art Initiative’s program, Reiffers Art Initiative decisively scaled up, curating a meeting between two impactful yet radically different artists: legendary Daniel Buren and audacious Miles Greenberg. Their collaboration heralded not just an event, but a manifesto of gestures poised to redefine the contemporary spirit.
Daniel Buren’s iconic stripes commanded both the exterior façade and interior canopy of Reiffers’ location. Outside, irregular shapes disrupted the urban horizon, while overhead, colored panels filtered ethereal light. Inside, Greenberg’s sculptures appeared in striking staging: aluminum forms gleamed beneath a room of sulfuric sud surrounded by black curtains. Shadows became the guiding motif, pulling us between what is visible and what remains hidden. Meanwhile, Buren’s stripes morphed into unexpected sensual windows on the upper floor.
Greenberg scenographed surprise itself. We gaze at his intense bodies, yet we had not expected such total scenography. And we realize now: perhaps Buren is the most sensual of geometrists, and Miles Greenberg the most meticulous of sensualists. Geometry guides the eyes indeed, but imperfection delivers a subtle chill. Within the space, a fractured red-striped square interrupts expectations. In contrast, Greenberg’s textures are precise, his theatricality underscored by refined plinths and striated aluminum. Rather than a collection of four-handed works, this exhibit unfolds as a dynamic dialogue about light.
As late Bob Wilson, Miles’s closest mentor, once said: “Everything comes from light.” Here, light not only animates color but redefines it, injecting youthful rebellion into the exchange. Buren’s foundational approach has always been about insertion—merging his work seamlessly into architectural space. Greenberg extends this idea, probing the relationship between exterior structure and hidden self. At the heart of his practice lies an excavation of what is most concealed: a stage for our social and emotional struggles.
Greenberg’s causes are universal yet deeply personal. Each sculpture incarnates a biblical legend: “Saint George and the Dragon“, “Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa“, and “Saint Michael the Archangel Defeating the Demon“. Against all odds, these mythic figures are embodied by confident young Black men. Audacity and multiplicity become a living manifesto outpacing the duo. Greenberg even rejuvenates Buren’s youthful spirit, echoing his historical “Seven Ballets” of 1970s New York, when women took to the stage clutching striped boards in acts of visual protest.
The literary backbone of this collaboration is Stanisław Lem’s novel “Solaris.” In Lem’s science fiction, scientists on a distant planet are visited by spectral manifestations of their lost loved ones. Greenberg draws from Lem the figure of the Black woman wandering the orbital station. During the exhibition’s opening, singer Yseult delivered a performance of rare presence, embodying the novel’s mystery and resonance without explaining its secrets.
Resonating with our most vulnerable psychological spaces, Miles Greenberg realized a tour de force, staging key points of the work that even Tarkovsky omitted. For a 28 year old artist, his rawness and authenticity speak truthfully to the pulse of contemporary life. Through this collaboration, he extends Buren’s legacy of freshness and accessible popular spirit—yet entirely in his own unclassifiable key.
If anything, contemporary collectors should be encouraged not merely to buy objects but to sustain cycles of performance and long-term exhibitions, fostering authenticity and freedom. Like mentors Jacques Lecoq and Bob Wilson before him, Miles Greenberg stands poised to incarnate French vitality with American momentum.
Later,
Mael Heinz
Cover Photo : Yseult starring in Greenberg’s Performance. Reiffers Courtesy. Picture by François Goizé
