Christian Boltanski
08 Mar - 03 May 2008
CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
"Les Ombres"
Inauguration for the artist on March 7, 2008 at 8 pm
Exhibition from March 8 – May 3, 2008
Christian Boltanski (lives at Paris) is one of the best known internationally working French contemporary artists in these days. For the just opened exhibition room of Galería Kewenig at Palma de Mallora, an oratory of the 13th century, Boltanski has created a site-related installation. Further new works will be shown in the other rooms of the gallery.
The spiritual tone of his oeuvre goes apart from other influences back to his family background. He was born 1944 in Paris as son of a French mother and a Jewish Ukrainian. The era of the holocaust, experiences of persecution and death of family members and friends are like a fil rouge in his works and comparable to traces in his memory. Like shadows ("Ombres") of commemoration they are repeated such as in the central installation at the Oratori, which is illuminated by candles of a shadow play. Used clothes are covering the floor in front of the altar. They underline the impression of being in a holy site as a room of appealing memento and of symbolizing the unity between life and death.
Nevertheless Boltanski's work is not a tribute to the death but in contrast of this a constant search for humanity and life. His oeuvre is marked by a strong aura of silence and forcefulness and has always abstained from spectacular demonstrations of violence. He works with used material such as photographies out of archives or private collections, used clothes, newspaper articles and objects being thrown away as former part of the life of deads, which life they document.
Also in his show he presents his "Autoportraits", a beautiful and also humorous piece, in which he exchanges parts of his face to underline the signs of aging and transistoriness. The portraits resemble computer made wanted-posters, in which parts of the face got put together puzzle like to get an overall picture of the delinquent. Besides Christian Boltanski is showing new overpainted photographs. Images out of a historic German family album are partially covered with black colour giving up the view on details which hardly allow to divine the scenes from World War II at first sight.
"Les Ombres"
Inauguration for the artist on March 7, 2008 at 8 pm
Exhibition from March 8 – May 3, 2008
Christian Boltanski (lives at Paris) is one of the best known internationally working French contemporary artists in these days. For the just opened exhibition room of Galería Kewenig at Palma de Mallora, an oratory of the 13th century, Boltanski has created a site-related installation. Further new works will be shown in the other rooms of the gallery.
The spiritual tone of his oeuvre goes apart from other influences back to his family background. He was born 1944 in Paris as son of a French mother and a Jewish Ukrainian. The era of the holocaust, experiences of persecution and death of family members and friends are like a fil rouge in his works and comparable to traces in his memory. Like shadows ("Ombres") of commemoration they are repeated such as in the central installation at the Oratori, which is illuminated by candles of a shadow play. Used clothes are covering the floor in front of the altar. They underline the impression of being in a holy site as a room of appealing memento and of symbolizing the unity between life and death.
Nevertheless Boltanski's work is not a tribute to the death but in contrast of this a constant search for humanity and life. His oeuvre is marked by a strong aura of silence and forcefulness and has always abstained from spectacular demonstrations of violence. He works with used material such as photographies out of archives or private collections, used clothes, newspaper articles and objects being thrown away as former part of the life of deads, which life they document.
Also in his show he presents his "Autoportraits", a beautiful and also humorous piece, in which he exchanges parts of his face to underline the signs of aging and transistoriness. The portraits resemble computer made wanted-posters, in which parts of the face got put together puzzle like to get an overall picture of the delinquent. Besides Christian Boltanski is showing new overpainted photographs. Images out of a historic German family album are partially covered with black colour giving up the view on details which hardly allow to divine the scenes from World War II at first sight.