Christian Boltanski

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox artist Christian Liberté Boltanski (6 September 1944 – 14 July 2021) was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French conceptual style.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Boltanski was born in Paris on 6 September 1944.<ref name=France24>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Artforum>Template:Cite news</ref> His father, Étienne Alexandre Boltanski,<ref>Template:Cite book</reF> a physician, was Jewish and had come to France from Russia, while Marie-Elise Ilari-Guérin, his Roman Catholic mother originated from Corsica, descended from Ukrainian Jews.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His Jewish heritage was a large influence in Boltanski's household. During World War II, while living in Paris, his father escaped deportation by hiding in a space under the floorboards of the family apartment for a year and a half. Christian grew up with this knowledge, and his early experiences with wartime affairs deeply affected him. These experiences would influence his artwork later on.<ref name="Grand">Christian Boltanski au Grand Palais, 12 January 2012, accessed 26 June 2019</ref><ref name="Buenos">BoltanskiBUENOS AIRES Template:Webarchive, bio(graphy), on the website of the 2012 project, accessed 26 June 2019</ref><ref name="Guggenheim">Christian Boltanski: Documentation and Reiteration, Guggenheim Museum, accessed 26 June 2019</ref> He dropped out of school at age 12.

Early career

Boltanski began creating art in the late 1950s, but did not rise to prominence until almost a decade later through a few short, avant-garde films and some published notebooks in which he referenced his childhood.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He had his first one-man exhibition at the Théâtre Le Ranelagh in May 1968.<ref name=France24/><ref name=Artforum/> His earliest works included imagery of ideal families and imaginary lifestyles (something Boltanski always lacked), made to display as if they were in museums.<ref name=Artforum/>

Installation art

File:Le Lycée Chases, 1986-1987, Christian Boltanski at Rubell DC 2022.jpg
Le Lycée Chases (1986-1987) at the Rubell Museum DC in 2022

Boltanski began creating mixed media/materials installations in 1986 with light as essential concept. Tin boxes, altar-like construction of framed and manipulated<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> photographs (e.g. Le Lycée Chases, 1986–1987), photographs of Jewish schoolchildren taken in Vienna in 1931,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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 Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel in 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.<ref name=MoMA>Christian Boltanski: About this artist, Oxford University Press</ref> 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."<ref>Monument (Odessa) Jewish Museum</ref> In 1971 Boltanski produced his installation, L' Album de la famille D. 1939-1964.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Additionally, his enormous installation titled "No Man's Land" (2010) at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, is a great example of how his constructions and installations trace the lives of the lost and forgotten.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Also in 2010, Boltanski unveiled the Les Archives du Cœur on Teshima, an island in Japan, which has since recorded and archived the heartbeats of many visitors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Exhibitions

Boltanski participated in over 150 art exhibitions throughout the world.<ref name="Christian Boltanski biography">Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> Among others, he had solo exhibitions at the New Museum (1988), the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Magasin 3 in Stockholm,<ref>Magasin 3 in Stockholm</ref> the La Maison Rouge gallery, Institut Mathildenhöhe, the Kewenig Galerie, The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, and many others.<ref name="Christian Boltanski biography"/>

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.<ref name=Baumgardner>Template:Cite news</ref> Nine years later, the Es Baluard museum in Mallorca exhibited Signatures from July to September 2011. The installation was conceived by Boltanski specifically for Es Baluard and which is focused on the memory of the workers who in the 17th century built the museum's walls.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news Template:In lang</ref>

In the winter of 2017–2018, Boltanski created a new installation for the Oude Kerk, titled After. It tackled the theme of what will come after life has come to an end. The exhibition was shown from November 2017 until April 2018.<ref name=WSI>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Boltanski was married to Annette Messager, who is also a contemporary artist, until his death. They chose not to have children.<ref name=France24/> They lived in Malakoff, outside Paris. He was the brother of sociologist Luc Boltanski and uncle of writer Christophe Boltanski.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Boltanski died on 14 July 2021 at Hôpital Cochin in Paris. He was 76, and suffered from an unspecified illness prior to his death.<ref name=France24/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Following his death, the artist's moral rights — which prerogatives are the right of disclosure, the right of respect of the works' integrity and the right to authorship - were passed on to Angelika Markul.

Prizes

  • 1994 Kunstpreis Aachen<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 1996 Rolandpreis für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum
  • 2007 billionéateurs sans frontières award for visual arts by Cultures France<ref name="Marian Goodman Gallery">Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 2006 Praemium Imperiale Award by the Japan Art Association<ref name=Artforum/><ref name="Marian Goodman Gallery"/>
  • 2001 Goslarer Kaiserring, Goslar, Germany<ref name=Artforum/><ref name="Marian Goodman Gallery"/>
  • 2001 Kunstpreis, given by Nord/LB, Braunschweig, Germany<ref name=Artforum/><ref name="Marian Goodman Gallery"/>
  • 2006 Praemium Imperiale award for sculpture, Japan<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Works and installations

References

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Further reading

  • Tamar Garb, Didier Semin, Donald Kuspit, "Christian Boltanski", Phaidon, London, 1997.
  • Bracha L. Ettinger, Matrix et le Voyage à Jerusalem de C.B. [Conversation/Interview with Christian Boltanski 1989, 60 portrait photographs of C.B next to his works in his studio, by BRACHA, 1990, and notebook fragments 1985-1989]. Artist's book. Paris: BLE Atelier, 1991.
  • Lynn Gumpert and Mary Jane Jacob, "Christian Boltanski: Lessons of Darkness," Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, 1988.
  • Didier Semin, "Christian Boltanski," Paris, Art Press, 1988.
  • Nancy Marmer, "Christian Boltanski: The Uses of Contradiction," "Art in America," October 1989, pp. 168–181, 233–235.
  • Lynn Gumpert, "Christian Boltanski," Paris, Flammarion, 1984.

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