Christian Boltanski

Christian Boltanski was born in Paris in 1944. His numerous solo exhibitions include shows at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design, in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston. He has shown four times at the Venice Biennale. Boltanski is represented in New York by the Marian Goodman Gallery.

ACTIVE BACKLIST

HANS ULRICH OBRIST & CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: THE CONVERSATION SERIES
WALTHER KöNIG
ISBN: 9783865605139 | US $34.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2009
Active | In stock

THE POSSIBLE LIFE OF CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
Text by Christian Boltanski, Catherine Grenier. Forword by Luc Sante.
MFA PUBLICATIONS
ISBN: 9780878467464 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 9/30/2009
Active | In stock

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: 6 SEPTEMBRES
Essay by Jean-Hubert Martin.
CHARTA/PAC
ISBN: 9788881585298 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 9/15/2005
Active | In stock

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: LA VIE IMPOSSIBLE
Artwork by Christian Boltanski.
WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
ISBN: 9783883755441 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 5/2/2002
Active | Awaiting stock

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: MONTE DI PIETA
Essay by Sergio Troisi.
CHARTA
ISBN: 9788881583096 | US $25.00
Pub Date: 4/2/2002
Active | In stock

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
CHARTA
ISBN: 9788881581177 | US $55.00
Pub Date: 8/2/1997
Active | In stock

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
Edited by Ralf Beil. Essay by Aleida Assmann.
HATJE CANTZ PUBLISHERS
ISBN: 9783775718257 | US $55.00
Pub Date: 1/15/2007
Out of print | Not available

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: ENTENDRE LES CHIENS
Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
ISBN: 9783883758961 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 3/15/2005
Out of print | Not available

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: SCRATCH
Artwork by Christian Boltanski.
WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
ISBN: 9783883755908 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 5/2/2003
Out of print | Not available

Christian Boltanski

Hans Ulrich Obrist & Christian Boltanski: The Conversation Series

Vol. 19

Published by Walther König

Hans Ulrich Obrist and Christian Boltanski are not only associated through their longstanding friendship: Boltanski was also the first artist that Obrist ever exhibited. Over the course of this friendship the two have often met for discussions, the earliest of which, from 1994, are published here. Whether on a taxi-boat in Venice, in his atelier or at an exhibition in Ljubljana, Botanski readily divulges information on his projects. His collaborations with other artists such as Ilya Kabakov, which have also led him into the field of performance arts such as opera and dance, are a particular theme of the conversations; on occasion, other interlocutors step in, such as the designer Jean Kalman or the sociologist Luc Boltanski (Christian Boltanski's brother). The result is an informal portrait of one of the most important artists of our time.

The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski

Text by Christian Boltanski, Catherine Grenier. Forword by Luc Sante.
Published by MFA Publications

Christian Boltanski's votive installations, archives and objects, revolving around the fragile polarities of memory and amnesia, identity and anonymity, have made him one of the world's most renowned contemporary artists. And yet, despite the centrality of biography and testimony to his work, Boltanski's own story is little known and has never been fully told. Published on the occasion of the artist's sixty-fifth birthday, The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski, written in the form of a book-length interview (which the artist likens to a "psychoanalysis" or "confession") with the art historian Catherine Grenier, is Boltanski's oral autobiography. In it, he recounts his unusual wartime childhood ("my mother hid my father under the floorboards. He stayed there for a year and a half, between two floors in the house. He'd come out from time to time--I'm living proof of that!"), his career, friendships and marriage, successes and regrets, his approaches to art and teaching, how he created various installations, his relations with dealers and the public, and other matters that illuminate as never before his complex, enigmatic works. Boltanski is refreshingly phlegmatic about the realities of the world (art and otherwise), and he relates his remarkable stories--some enormously amusing, others tragic--with a matter-of-factness and self-deprecating humor that highlight his capacity for humane responsiveness. As both the self-portrait of a major contemporary artist and a frank, fascinating memoir, this is a document of capital importance.

Christian Boltanski

Time

Edited by Ralf Beil. Essay by Aleida Assmann.
Published by Hatje Cantz Publishers

Christian Boltanski is one of the most important European contemporary artists working today, masterful at staging rooms and situations. His work in photography and installation, among other mediums, evokes primary concerns of human existence like lifespan, identity, body, death and legacy: how will we be remembered? Christian Boltanski documents the artist's first comprehensive solo show in Germany after more than 10 years, which connects existing pieces with new creations in a unique installation transcending time and architecture. This monograph fathoms and examines the singular echo space of Christian Boltanski's art in philosophical, literary and art-historical essays by such well-known authors as Aleida Assmann and Ralf Beil, and is rounded off by an interview with the artist.

Christian Boltanski: 6 Septembres

Essay by Jean-Hubert Martin.
Published by Charta/PAC

Invited by France's Institut National de L'audiovisuel, the country's chief television archive, to comb their collection for a project, Christian Boltanski, the noted French installation and video artist, became overwhelmed. To make the task manageable and personal, he settled on the idea of compiling footage from news broadcasts from every one of his 60 birthdays, on September 6, since 1944. He wove the clips into a three-screen projection, creating another of his trademark meditations on memory, time, and death. Boltanski's other recent works in video, installation, and photography emphasize the precariousness of our existence, but do so with luminosity and humor, and always involve the audience in the implacable passing of time.

Christian Boltanski: Entendre Les Chiens

Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Published by Walther König, Köln

Under the pseudonym Amicale des tªmoins, Christian Boltanski created his poetic-conceptual project Entendre Les Chiens (Listen to the Dogs) for the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003. During the exhibition, he emitted a recording of the sounds of an island of errant dogs--who are kept away from the city of Venice on the island Lazzarretto Vecchio--from a series of speakers hidden throughout Venice.

Christian Boltanski: Scratch

Artwork by Christian Boltanski.
Published by Walther König, Köln

In this book of forbidden images, the responsibility for viewing photographs many would not want to see is left entirely up to the reader. A silver surface has been printed over each of the graphic, disturbing pictures reproduced herein, covering them up in their entirety--only upon scratching the surface off can the images beneath be revealed.

Christian Boltanski: La Vie Impossible

What People Remember About Him

Artwork by Christian Boltanski.
Published by Walther König, Köln

As much artist's book as catalogue, La Vie Impossible is unusual for its physical construction alone: its text is printed on black paper, with the images on alternating vellum, so that at each turn of the page one can see through the photographic image to the next black page (or look back at the previous text). The texts are fragmented autobiographical statements: "He left school very early on and made many spelling mistakes, he liked to brag about that;" or "He worked very little or at least that's what he said, he claimed that he lived a retiring life, that he spent his time in public gardens or in museums in winter because they were heated." 100 statements like these are juxtaposed with 100 photo and document collages.

Christian Boltanski: Monte Di Pieta

Essay by Sergio Troisi.
Published by Charta

Born in Paris in 1944, Christian Boltanski is undoubtedly one of the most interesting contemporary French artists, and has been a leading figure in the international art scene for over 20 years. He began his artistic career at a very young age with his large canvas paintings, but in 1968 he abandoned painting for a less traditional and more conceptual means of expression which included mixed media and found objects. He has made short films, true and fictional dossiers of his life; he has archived moments of his existence in cookie-tin boxes and has collected photographic portraits. Since the mid-80s, his work has been pervaded by an awareness of the tragic events of the Second World War. Boltanski presents themes dearest to the artist: the memories collected in everyday objects, relics of a collective past and redemption--through the artist's intervention--of nameless people without a history.

Christian Boltanski

Artwork by Christian Boltanski. Edited by Danilo Eccher. Contributions by Daniel Soutif, Paolo Fabbri.
Published by Charta

This volume presents an exhaustive survey of Boltanski's artistic career, documenting the researches that led him to the creation of his most recent installations in Bologna.