Death is no longer hidden

03.02.2021

“Après” by Christian Boltanski at Galerie Marian Goodman in Paris

“The very horrible yet interesting thing has occurred since Covid is here, which is that death is no longer hidden. Death used to be completely denied by us, and nowdays, because of this desease, we are talking about death as something that is around us and is present.
/Christian Boltanski/

The exhibition “Après” currently on view at Galerie Marian Goodman in Paris (20 January - 13 March 2021), is Christian Boltanski’s first solo show in France since his retrospective at the Centre Pompidou a year ago. In this show laid out over the two floors of the gallery, Boltanski gives free rein to his interest in a form of total art in which the works develop their own scenography. Articulated in a coherent whole, they stimulate all the vectors of perception, whether direct or deeper in the private world of memory. “The experience I want visitors to have in each of my exhibitions is not necessarily to understand but to feel that something has happened,” explains the artist.

Christian Boltanski. Le Passage, 2020. Video projection, black and white, silent, continuous loop / Photo: Rebecca Fanuele / Courtesy de l’artiste et Marian Goodman Gallery New York, Paris / Copyright Christian Boltanski et Marian Goodman Gallery Paris

This exhibition comprises a new set of sculptures combined with video projections, a big new video installation in the basement, and, in conclusion, two other, older installations.

On the ground floor, masses of white cloths on trolleys randomly fill the centre of the room. In these new works titled Les Linges (2020), which the artist began working on during the lockdown last spring, Boltanski’s emblematic materials “take on a new meaning in connection with the events we are living through.” We are invited to lose ourselves as we walk among these forms that slowly stir memories of an atmosphere or experience we have known.

Christian Boltanski. Les Linges, 2020. Metal tables on wheels, cardboard, cotton cloth, staples, neon flexible LED. Dimensions variable. Photo: Rebecca Fanuele / Courtesy de l’artiste et Marian Goodman Gallery New York, Paris / Copyright Christian Boltanski et Marian Goodman Gallery Paris

This installation is juxtaposed with projections on the walls titled Les Esprits (2020). In them we see the faces of children, their barely visible features gently fading, like fleeting memories. At first ghostly, the faces then appear more distinctly on the walls as the light dims, thereby creating a dynamic interaction with the characteristics of the gallery space.

A barely visible, mysterious video accompanies viewers and invites them to go downstairs.

On the lower level, the video installation Les Disparus (2020) spreads over four large curtains on which “clichéd videos of a fabricated vision of happiness hide subliminal images of the horrors that took place in the century I was born into and that unfolded in parallel to part of my life,” explains the artist. “For most of us, they remain present in our subconscious.”

Christian Boltanski. Les Disparus, 2020. 4 channel video installation, sound, continuous loop. Dimensions variable. Photos: Rebecca Fanuele / Courtesy de l’artiste et Marian Goodman Gallery New York, Paris / Copyright Christian Boltanski et Marian Goodman Gallery Paris

Title image: Christian Boltanski. Après, 2010. 72 brass sockets, 72 blue LED bulbs, electric wire, power socket. Dimensions variable.
Photo: Rebecca Fanuele
Courtesy de l’artiste et Marian Goodman Gallery New York, Paris
Copyright Christian Boltanski et Marian Goodman Gallery Paris