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.

Early life

Boltanski was born in Paris on 6 September 1944. His father, Étienne Alexandre Boltanski,BoltanskiBUENOS AIRES
bio(graphy), on the website of the 2012 project, accessed 26 June 2019Christian Boltanski: Documentation and Reiteration
Guggenheim Museum, accessed 26 June 2019 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. He had his first one-man exhibition at the

Théâtre Le Ranelagh The Théâtre le Ranelagh is a theater located at 5 rue des Vignes, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, 16th arrondissement of Paris, close to the Ranelagh Gardens. History In 1755, Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière, Alexandre Jean Josep ...

in May 1968. His earliest works included imagery of ideal families and imaginary lifestyles (something Boltanski always lacked), made to display as if they were in museums.

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. ''Le Lycée Chases'', 1986–1987), photographs of Jewish schoolchildren taken in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

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 Museum für Gegenwartskunst in

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

in 1989), Boltanski filled rooms and corridors with worn clothing items as a way of inciting profound sensation of human tragedy at

concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

. As in his previous works, objects serve as relentless reminders of human experience and suffering.Christian Boltanski: About this artist

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

His piece, '' Monument (Odessa)'', uses six photographs of Jewish students in 1939 and lights to resemble

Yahrzeit candle A yahrzeit candle, also spelled yahrtzeit candle or called a memorial candle, ( he, נר נשמה, ''ner neshama'', meaning "soul candle"; yi, יאָרצײַט ליכט , meaning "anniversary candle") is a type of candle that is lit in memo ...

s to honor and remember the dead. "My work is about the fact of dying, but it's not about the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

itself." In 1971 Boltanski produced his installation, ''L' Album de la famille D. 1939-1964''. Additionally, his enormous installation titled "No Man's Land" (2010) at the

Park Avenue Armory __NOTOC__ The Park Avenue Armory Conservancy, generally known as Park Avenue Armory, is a nonprofit cultural institution within the historic Seventh Regiment Armory building located at 643 Park Avenue on New York City's Upper East Side. The ins ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, is a great example of how his constructions and installations trace the lives of the lost and forgotten.

Exhibitions

Boltanski participated in over 150 art exhibitions throughout the world. Among others, he had solo exhibitions at the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...

(1988), the

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein The Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein ( English: ''Liechtenstein Museum of Fine Arts'') is the state museum of modern and contemporary art in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The building by the Swiss architects Meinrad Morger, Heinrich Degelo and Christian Kere ...

Magasin 3 in Stockholm
the

La Maison Rouge La Maison Rouge was a private contemporary art Foundation dedicated mainly to showing private art collections, monographic shows of contemporary artists' work. It was located close to the Bastille, in Paris, at 10 Boulevard de la Bastille in the 12 ...

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 Unna is a city of around 59,000 people in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the seat of the Unna district. The newly refurbished Unna station has trains to all major cities in North Rhine Westphalia including Dortmund, Cologne, Münster, Hamm, ...

, Germany. Nine years later, the

Es Baluard Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, located in Palma and inaugurated on 30 January 2004, has a reserve of more than 700 works of art linked to artists from the Balearic Islands and/or of international renown. As well as cons ...

museum in Mallorca exhibited ''Signatures'' from July to September 2011. The installation was conceived by Boltanski specifically for

and which is focused on the memory of the workers who in the 17th century built the museum's walls. 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.

Personal life

Boltanski was married to Annette Messager, who is also a contemporary artist, until his death. They chose not to have children. They lived in

Malakoff Malakoff () is a suburban commune in the Hauts-de-Seine department southwest of Paris, France. Located from the centre of the city, it had a population of 30,286 in 2016. The European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment (EUROCAE) is base ...

, outside Paris. He was the brother of sociologist Luc Boltanski and uncle of writer Christophe Boltanski. Boltanski died on 14 July 2021 at

Hôpital Cochin The Hôpital Cochin is a hospital of public assistance in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques Paris 14e. It houses the central burn treatment centre of the city. The Hôpital Cochin is a section of the Faculté de Médecine Paris-Descartes. It comm ...

in Paris. He was 76, and suffered from an unspecified illness prior to his death. Following his death, the artist’s

moral rights Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work ...

— 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.

Gallery

File:Christian Boltanski sculpture in Folkestone.jpg,

Sound installation Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...

''The Whispers'', Folkestone Triennal (2008) File:Krypta (Salzburger Dom) room 2 - Vanitas by Christian Boltanski.jpg, ''Vanitas'', Salzburger Dom 2008. File:Christian Boltanski. Signatures.jpg, ''Signatures'', 2011. File:Les habitants de l'hôtel de Saint-Aignan en 1939 (détail), Christian Boltanski - Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme - Boltanski.jpg, ''The inhabitants of the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan in 1939'' (1998) – Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme. File:Christian Boltanski Chance 9 JAN - 23 MAR 2014 at Carriageworks.jpg, ''Chance'', 2014. File:Christian-Boltanski-portrait.jpg, Christian Boltanski, 1990. File:Christian Boltanski - IVAM.jpg, Christian Boltanski, 2015.

Prizes

*1994 Kunstpreis Aachen *1996 Rolandpreis für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum *2007 billionéateurs sans frontières award for visual arts by Cultures France *2006

Praemium Imperiale Prince Takamatsu The Praemium Imperiale ( ja, 高松宮殿下記念世界文化賞, Takamatsu-no-miya Denka Kinen Sekai Bunka-shō, World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu) is an international art prize inaugur ...

Award by the Japan Art Association *2001 Goslarer Kaiserring, Goslar, Germany *2001 Kunstpreis, given by Nord/LB, Braunschweig, Germany *2006 Praemium Imperiale award for sculpture, Japan

Works and installations

* 1969 "L'Homme qui tousse" * 1973 "Inventory of Objects Belonging to a Young Man of Oxford" *1988 "Christian Boltanski: Lessons of Darkness" *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" *2017 "Mysteries"