Louis Vuitton<\/a> gallery in Munich, it features two videos from the artist\u2019s trip to Chile\u2019s Atacama desert, where he installed 800 Japanese bells on wire stalks, each bearing a Haiku \u2013 an exercise he repeated in Canada, Japan and Israel. These works are, however, not designed to be experienced. All that remains of them is a 20 minute video loop installed within a patch of dried vegetation (an allusion to Chile) and scrunched up sheets of A4 paper (a reference Canada\u2019s snowy plains). With the words \u201cArriv\u00e9e\u201d and \u201cDepart\u201d visible above in marquee lights, the effect is somewhat akin to Francophone existentialist theatre. Indeed, the title of the series is a Chilean term referring to small shrines at the roadsides used to commemorate the dead. Ahead of the opening of this exhibition, the artist spoke to SLEEK about his idea of art as a musical score, and why he would rather be remembered as a legend than for his artwork.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christian_boltanski_arivee.jpg\")
ARRIV\u00c9E, 2016, Exhibition View \/ Espace, Louis Vuitton Munchen.<\/p>\n
Why have you chosen to combine the new pieces in your \u201cAnimitas\u201d with text?<\/strong><\/em>
\nAll life is \u201cdepart et arrive\u201d, and the \u201cAnimitas\u201d videos are what comes after [them].
\nHow did you chose the locations for these works?<\/strong><\/em>
\nI always wanted to use places nobody could find, the idea being the artwork itself will disappear after a while, from the wind, or the snow. I just finished the last one at the Dead Sea, which is also going to be destroyed very quickly. However, in [the iteration in] Japan, on the isle of Teshima, it was different. People can buy a bell for a low price and inscribe [on it] the name of someone. It becomes a memorial.
\nAre you attempting to posit a universal concept of dying through this, a contemporary Vanitas?<\/strong><\/em>
\nIt\u2019s a universal thing to die. For me, what is important is who makes the piece. The meaning is different for [everyone]. [But yes], I am working with the concept of Vanitas, such as in \u201cThe Reserve of the Dead Swiss\u201d [Ed: the sculptor\u2019s installation of obituary photos from the regional Swiss newspaper Le Nouvelliste du Valais]. The Swiss have no reason to die. They are rich. Everything is vanitas, why I\u2019m here, when I\u2019m going to speak. That is vanitas. If you ask me what country I come from I say \u201cart\u201d, and I think that most people are thinking about the same thing [but] they don\u2019t speak the same language. [W]hat they are looking for is what is the same in each country. They are looking for a god and they are looking for understanding.
\nHow did you arrive at this position?\u00a0<\/strong>It is starkly contrasted with the general attitude of contemporary art, which often seems defined with specific cultural identities. <\/strong><\/em>
\nTo have truth, we must have a dream identity. My dream identity is between the White Sea and the Black Sea. I think in the mind\u00a0there is also some ancestral knowledge. Do you know the saying \u201cIn the eyes of the great grandmother\u201d? [It means] you know something by your great grandmother, something very mixed, something not precise, but [which could be described as] some kind of identity \u2013 a mixed Identity.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christian_boltanski_03.jpg\")
ANIMITAS (BLANC) \u00cele d\u2019Orl\u00e9ans, Canada, 2017, exhibition view \/ Espace Louis Vuitton Munchen.<\/p>\n
You have said that your work is like a musical score. How?<\/strong><\/em>
\nTwo years ago I sold a very large piece to a Belgian Museum, and I gave them nothing, but the right to play the piece again one day. So it\u2019s like a score.
\n You are said to have a complicated relationship with museums. Are your works meant to be public?<\/strong><\/em>
\nIn Berlin, I didn\u2019t want to make permanent monuments, it happened only by chance. [Ed: In 2013, he created \u201cThe Missing House\u201d in the German capital, an outdoor installation concerning a dwelling destroyed in 1943.] For \u201cAnimitas\u201d I built a little building with a Chilean architect just outside in Paris, showing a projection of the work. The modern life is so active you need to sit sometime, to look, to think. Ideally, I\u2019d like the works not to be in a gallery or museum, but in the square, in the garden, to have some kind of little pavilion, you sit and you look. It\u2019s public. For example, in Teshima most of the people who go there don\u2019t know me and they don\u2019t know [my] work. I try to create places that are more like a place of leisure.
\nWhy have you chosen to install your latest exhibition in Espace?<\/strong><\/em>
\nIt\u2019s like the idea of a little chapel. It\u2019s not only a video, it\u2019s ambiance. It\u2019s difficult to do that here, but [I\u2019ve tried] to make some kind of home that somebody can stand [in], sit [on]. Everyone can look at \u201cAnimitas\u201d and think something. It\u2019s not a question [of whether] it\u2019s a beautiful piece of art or not, but we can think something. That\u2019s what I tried to do in my last piece, in Patagonia, where I installed large trumpets that make sounds like whale songs. I turned the work in to a ten hour film. No one will find the trumpets, they\u2019re installed on a 100,000 acre farm.
\nAnd why do you choose such remote locations?<\/strong><\/em>
\nWhat I want is to create a legend. I hope in a few years, when I shall be dead, somebody will not remember my name, but will say, \u201cHe was crazy man that tried to speak with the whales\u201d. I think the legend is stronger than the art work.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christian_boltanski_04.jpg\")
DEPART, 2016, Exhibition View \/ Espace Louis Vuitton Munchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the latest installment of his ongoing work \u201cAnimitas\u201d, French sculptor Christian Boltanski is contemplating universality.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[9846,38,3927,1375,9702,13,514,4976,212,9847,9848],"class_list":["post-59951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-arrivee-et-depart","tag-art","tag-christian-boltanski","tag-contemporary-art","tag-fine-art","tag-interview","tag-jeni-fulton","tag-legends","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-teshima","tag-the-reserve-of-the-dead-swiss"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Fragile Time: Talking About Death with Christian Boltanski Fragile Time: Talking About Death with Christian Boltanski<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/christian-boltanski-interview-death\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fragile Time: Talking About Death with Christian Boltanski Fragile Time: Talking About Death with Christian Boltanski\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the latest installment of his ongoing work \u201cAnimitas\u201d, French sculptor Christian Boltanski is contemplating universality.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/christian-boltanski-interview-death\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-08T15:51:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/christian_boltanski_02.jpg\")
CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI, Portrait at Espace Louis Vuitton Munchen, 2017<\/p>\n