Christian Boltanski Art

Die Jüdische Schule (Berlin 1939), from Der Gefrorene Leopard II portfolio Photolithograph/tracing paper taped to grey card edition of 60. 1992 Christian Boltanski (born 1944) is a French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker, most well known for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual style. He is the brother of Luc Boltanski and the partner of Annette Messager. The writer Christophe Boltanski is his nephew. Boltanski began creating art in the late 1950s, but didn't rise to prominence until almost a decade later through a few short, avante-garde films and some published notebooks in which he referenced his childhood. In 1986, Boltanski began creating mixed media/materials installations 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. Exhibitions Christian Boltanski has participated in over 150 art exhibitions throughout the world. Among others, he had solo exhibitions at the New Museum (1988), the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Magasin 3 in Stockholm, the La Maison Rouge gallery, Institut Mathildenhöhe, the Kewenig Galerie, The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme and many others. In 2002, Boltanski made the installation "Totentanz II", a Shadow Installation with copper figures, for the underground Centre for International Light Art (CILA) in Unna, Germany. Christian Boltanski is a member of the Narrative Art movement that is based on the use of photography associated with a text. Both are presented separately in the space, yet the visitor is supposed to connect them on a mental level. Other artists of the movement include John Baldessari, Jean Le Gac, Peter Hutchinson...

Christian Boltanski, El Caso, Parkett., Zürich. 1989 in the collection of the MOMA Museum of Modern Art NYC Miniature booklet with 17 photographs, 2 x 3 1/8” (5 x 8 x 0,6 cm) ring bound with perspex covers and printed title Ed. 80/XX, signed and numbered (this one is not signed or numbered and might be an artist proof) Guilty, Not Guilty. Themes central to Boltanski’s oeuvre find devastating expression in this tiny piece of pocket pornography containing images of brutal murder re-photographed by the artist from the Spanish detective magazine El Caso. [Ref. Bob Calle - Christian Boltanski Artist's Books 1969-2007, p.60]. Artists' book featuring 17 b/w photographs held together with two metal rings: "Luxury edition of a booklet with real glossy photographs, small enough to be hidden behind the hand... It pictures the bodies of victims of violent crime. By showing these photographs of half-naked corpses, bought nearer by close-up shots, the artist transforms the viewer into a voyeur who virtually becomes a sadistic partner in the crime." -- from Catalogue: Books, Printed Matter, Ephemera 1966-1991. references "Livres" by Christian Boltanski. Paris / Köln / Frankfurt, France / Germany : AFAA / Jennifer Flay / Walther König / Portikus, 1991. No. 69 in "Christian Boltanski : Catalogue: Books, Printed Matter, Ephemera, 1966-1991" by Christian Boltanski, Jennifer Flay, Günter Metken. Köln / Frankfurt, Germany : Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König / Portikus, 1992, pp. 184 - 185. "Christian Boltanski : Artist's Books 1969 - 2007" by Christian Boltanski, Bob Calle. Paris, France : Éditions 591, 2008, pp. 60. Quote “There is in the work of the artist something of the high priest and something of the charlatan...