NEW YORK—Daniel Buren made somewhat of an entrance- and untimely exit- at the Guggenheim Museum 34 years ago. His controversial entry in a group showing was a 66 by 32 foot banner that hung in the museum’s rotunda. It was dismantled the day before the exhibit opened following protests from fellow exhibitors, who said that it obscured views of their works. The last minute decision to censor Buren’s work has become legendary in art circles.

Buren has returned all these years later to once again capitalize, and perhaps, impose upon, Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling rotunda. His newest work “Around The Corner” is a towering, mirrored structure that works as the center piece of Buren’s current solo show “The Eye of The Storm: Works In Situ.”

As in past shows, Buren’s work addresses the framework or context in which a work of art is viewed.

“In the eye of the storm everything is calm, quiet and peaceful, while the rest of the museum twirls around it, up and down like a strong hurricane,” said Buren at last week’s opening.

Upon entering the museum it may at first appear that the exhibit is still under construction, as the six story “corner” is viewed from the backside. Chain link fence, scaffolding and plywood fill the space from bottom to top. The front of the sculpture is skinned in mirrored panels. All of these elements are suggestive of the city outside the museum, the ever-present scaffolding on our city’s streets, as well as the orthogonal glass skyscrapers.

The “corner” is that of an imaginary cube, which if complete, would sit on the corners of 88th Street and 5th Avenue. In the rotunda, the corner fills a quarter of the building and when viewed from certain angles, seamlessly continues the gallery’s ramp as it curves upward, as reflected in the mirror.

The front of the handrail has been accented with lime green rectangles, and the skylight above has been tinted with alternating colored gels of magenta and frosted glass. The main gallery walls are left bare.

Similar to “The Gates,” “The Corner” is as much a complex and detailed engineering undertaking as it is an expression of art. The Guggenheim’s staff engineers had to take into consideration the massive weight and complex structure of the sculpture in planning for the installation. The original design called for the rest of the cube to be completed through the façade of the museum, and out onto the sidewalk of 5th Avenue, but in the end that plan proved too costly.

The exhibition also includes a collection of twenty of Buren’s striped canvas paintings dating from 1966-1977, as well as colored film transparencies in geometric shapes that filter the incoming light in the day, and are lit from outside in the evening.

“The Eye of The Storm” opened on Friday and will be on view at the Guggenheim Museum through June 8.