Christian Boltanski
13 Sep - 05 Oct 2008
CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI
les archives du cœur
In September 2008, la maison rouge invites Christian Boltanski to create an exhibition around his 2005 installation, Le Cœur.
A question - Qui êtes-vous? (Who are you?) (2008) - leaps out at visitors as they approach the exhibition where, inside a pitch-black room, they come face to face with Le Coeur (The Heart): a light bulb that flicks on and off to the rhythm of the artist's heartbeat, filling the space with a perpetual movement between life and death.
At the back of this darkened room, a video work - Entre-temps (Between Times) (2003) - shows fade-overs of the artist's face from childhood to the age of 60.
For the 37th Festival d’Automne à Paris, Christian Boltanski wished to take Le Coeur a stage further and compile what he calls "archives from the heart."
He continues his investigation of "small memories" (as opposed to the "large memories preserved in books"), "the small memories which I believe are what make us unique, [...] extremely fragile, and [which] vanish with death," as he likes to remind us, by inviting each of the exhibition's visitors to record their own heartbeat in a specially-installed booth. In doing so they contribute to "Christian Boltanski's archives from the heart." Visitors can, if they wish, buy a recording of their heartbeat on an analogue disc.
This archiving, initiated by la maison rouge, will take place simultaneously at the Christian Boltanski exhibition at Magasin 3 in Stockholm, which will also include a recording studio.
The artist wishes to go on collecting these recordings alongside other projects that will be put to him over the next few years, thereby adding to the archives ad infinitum. He hopes to preserve them on the island of Ejima in the Sea of Japan, which a collector has placed at his disposal.
As part of Nuit Blanche 2008, the exhibition will remain open to the public during the night of Saturday 4th to Sunday 5th October.
les archives du cœur
In September 2008, la maison rouge invites Christian Boltanski to create an exhibition around his 2005 installation, Le Cœur.
A question - Qui êtes-vous? (Who are you?) (2008) - leaps out at visitors as they approach the exhibition where, inside a pitch-black room, they come face to face with Le Coeur (The Heart): a light bulb that flicks on and off to the rhythm of the artist's heartbeat, filling the space with a perpetual movement between life and death.
At the back of this darkened room, a video work - Entre-temps (Between Times) (2003) - shows fade-overs of the artist's face from childhood to the age of 60.
For the 37th Festival d’Automne à Paris, Christian Boltanski wished to take Le Coeur a stage further and compile what he calls "archives from the heart."
He continues his investigation of "small memories" (as opposed to the "large memories preserved in books"), "the small memories which I believe are what make us unique, [...] extremely fragile, and [which] vanish with death," as he likes to remind us, by inviting each of the exhibition's visitors to record their own heartbeat in a specially-installed booth. In doing so they contribute to "Christian Boltanski's archives from the heart." Visitors can, if they wish, buy a recording of their heartbeat on an analogue disc.
This archiving, initiated by la maison rouge, will take place simultaneously at the Christian Boltanski exhibition at Magasin 3 in Stockholm, which will also include a recording studio.
The artist wishes to go on collecting these recordings alongside other projects that will be put to him over the next few years, thereby adding to the archives ad infinitum. He hopes to preserve them on the island of Ejima in the Sea of Japan, which a collector has placed at his disposal.
As part of Nuit Blanche 2008, the exhibition will remain open to the public during the night of Saturday 4th to Sunday 5th October.