Christian Boltanski
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Many contemporary artists continue to be haunted by the horrors of the Second World War and the specter of the Holocaust. Christian Boltanski's harrowing installations of the lost and the anonymous are particularly powerful." Sholem Stein "And although Boltanski did not approach the subject of the Holocaust head-on until 1988 with his installations Chases High School (1988), Reserves: The Purim Holiday (1989), and Canada (1988), one can argue—and I do so later—that his earlier works and those after 1988-89 deal with aspects of the Holocaust, albeit in a noniconic, nonhistorical mode."-- "Deadly Historians: Boltanski's Intervention in Holocaust Historiography" (1999) by Ernst van Alphen |
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Christian Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French artist working in sculpture, photography, painting, and filmmaking, known for such works as Personnes (2010).
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Installation art
Boltanski began creating mixed media/materials installations in 1986 with light as essential concept. Tin boxes, altar-like construction of framed and manipulated photographs (e.g. Chases School, 1986–1987), photographs of Jewish schoolchildren taken in Vienna in 1931, used as a forceful reminder of mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, all those elements and materials used in his work are used in order to represent deep contemplation regarding reconstruction of past. While creating Reserve (exhibition at Basel, Museum Gegenwartskunst, 1989), Boltanski filled rooms and corridors with worn clothing items as a way of inciting profound sensation of human tragedy at concentration camps. As in his previous works, objects serve as relentless reminders of human experience and suffering. His piece, Monument (Odessa), uses six photographs of Jewish students in 1939 and lights to resemble Yahrzeit candles to honor and remember the dead. "My work is about the fact of dying, but it's not about the Holocaust itself."
Additionally, his enormous installation titled "No Man's Land" (2010) at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, is a great example of how his constructions and installations trace the lives of the lost and forgotten.
Personal life
Boltanski was married to Annette Messager, who is also a contemporary artist, until his death. They chose not to have children. He was the brother of sociologist Luc Boltanski and uncle of writer Christophe Boltanski.
Boltanski died on 14 July 2021 at Hôpital Cochin in Paris. He was 76, and suffered from an unspecified illness prior to his death.
Works/Installations
- 1969 "L'Homme qui tousse"
- 1973 "Inventory of Objects Belonging to a Young Man of Oxford"
- 1989 Monument to the Lycée Chases
- 1990 "Reserve of Dead Swiss (Réserve de Suisses morts)"
- 2002 "Totentanz II"
- 2010 "No Man's Land"
- 2010: "People (Personnes)"
- 2014 "Animitas"
- 2017 "After"
See also
- HuO: Hans-Ulrich Obrist: Interviews (2003) by Hans-Ulrich Obrist
