- Christian Boltanski
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Christian Boltanski 
Christian Boltanski in 1990.Born 6 September 1944
Paris, FranceNationality French Field Sculpture, Painting, Photography, Installation art Christian Boltanski (born 1944 in Paris) is French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker.
Sound installation The Whispers by Christian Boltanski at the Folkestone Triennal (2008)
Contents
Life and work
Having no formal art education, he began painting in 1958. Nevertheless, he first came to public attention in 1960 with few short films and publication of several notebooks. Both avant-garde short films and notebooks contained mutualism of both real and fictional human existence. This relation remained dominant concept to his later art. In 1970, he began experimenting with object creation from clay and from many other unusual materials (sugar and gauze). These works, some of them entitled Attempt at Reconstitution of Objects that Belonged to Christian Boltanski between 1948 and 1954 (1970-1971), consisted of flashbacks of segment of life and time, diminishing memory and human condition.[1]
In the 1970s, Boltanski started using mainly photography for expressing form exploration of consciousness and remembering. After 1976, he started treating photography as painting, making collages of sliced photographs of still nature and everyday life banality in order to reflect collective aesthetic condition of modern civilization in ordinary, stereotypical way. As a departure from his earlier medias, he started using readymade objects. His use of small, colorful figures made from cardboard, thread and cork, transposed photographically into large picture formats, helped him creating effective theatrical compositions. These works encouraged him to start creating kinetic installations. The Shadows (1984), consists of strong light focused on figurative shapes and forms generating mysterious environment of silhouettes in movement.[1]
Installation art
1986 was the year Boltanski began creating mixed media/materials installations with light as essential concept. Tin boxes, altar-like construction of framed 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 Basle, 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 reminder to human experience and suffering.[1]
Exhibitions
Christian Boltanski has participated in over 150 art exhibitions throughout the world.[2]. Among other, he had solo exhibitions at 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.[3]
From July 1 to September 25, 2011 museum Es Baluard (Mallorca, Spain) will exhibit "Signatures", the installation Christian Boltanski has conceived specifically for Es Baluard and which is focused on the memory of the workers who in the 17th Century built the walls in which the museum is placed.
Prizes
- 2007 Créateurs sans frontières award for visual arts by Cultures France[4]
- 2007 Praemium Imperiale Award by the Japan Art Association[5]
- 2001 Goslarer Kaiserring, Goslar, Germany[6]
- 2001 Kunstpreis, given by Nord/LB, Braunschweig, Germany[7]
References
- ^ a b c Christian Boltanski: About this artist, Oxford University Press
- ^ "Christian Boltanski biography". Marian Goodman gallery. http://i1.exhibit-e.com/mariangoodman/e5651959.pdf.
- ^ "Christian Boltanski biography". Marian Goodman gallery. http://i1.exhibit-e.com/mariangoodman/e5651959.pdf.
- ^ "Marian Goodman Gallery". Marian Goodman Gallery. http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/christian-boltanski/. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
- ^ "Marian Goodman Gallery". Marian Goodman Gallery. http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/christian-boltanski/. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
- ^ "Marian Goodman Gallery". Marian Goodman Gallery. http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/christian-boltanski/. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
- ^ "Marian Goodman Gallery". Marian Goodman Gallery. http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/christian-boltanski/. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
Further Reading
- 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, 1944.
External links
- Marian Goodman Gallery
- Tate Magazine Interview
- ICP: Christian Boltanski
- Folkestone Triennial: Christian Boltanski
- (French) Christian Boltanski
- Exhibitions listed at kunstaspekte.de
- MoMA profile
- Art Icono
Categories:- 1944 births
- Contemporary artists
- French Jews
- French mixed-media artists
- French painters
- French photographers
- French sculptors
- Living people
- Postmodern artists
- French people of Corsican descent
- Faculty of the École des Beaux-Arts
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