An appreciation of Christian Boltanski, brilliant artist and friend
When he was young, the late French artist Christian Boltanski liked to recount, he devised a novel, if slightly louche method for making his way through the vast masterpiece-lined halls of the Louvre Museum. Upon entering, he would find an attractive young woman and follow her at a discreet distance, remaining entirely unnoticed by her, but pausing whenever she paused, to stop and look at the art she chose.
What was I doing there? The artist had played an important role in my young life. We’d first met decades earlier, at the start of a year I spent researching my doctoral dissertation in Paris, when a New York art-world friend on vacation had taken me to visit some artists’ studios, set down in the working-class, Parisian suburb of Malakoff.
Christian Boltanski poses for a portrait among a sculptural installation memorializing victims of the Holocaust, circa 1992., on view simultaneously at different locations around Manhattan. Our installation, which he very generously co-signed with me, took place at the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side, a magnificent, Moorish Revival sanctuary over a century old and at the time in great disrepair.
2021, “he inserted himself very neatly into the history of France,” my friend, a Parisian psychoanalyst and philosopher, wryly observed.The third of three brothers, and with a younger sister adopted later, Christian and his family lived with a horror of being separated—a legacy, in part, of their wartime experience. Their home was spacious, but the boys slept at the foot of their parents’ bed well into their teenage years, only rarely venturing beyond its walls alone.
Upon arrival, we were ushered into the Royal Chapel, a gilded, 18th-century confection of soaring vaults and colonnades, with the painted figure of Christ high up in the apse, ascending to Heaven accompanied by angels.
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
25 Best Pride Songs of 2021: Staff PicksCheck out Billboard’s picks for the 25 best songs by LGBTQ artists released in 2021 below.
Read more »
Gift of the Day: See the World Through Rose-Colored Loewe GlassesWith an oversize frame and tinted lenses, whomever you gift these to can finally embrace their inner maximalist
Read more »
Commentary: The faces and facets of classical music's year of emergenceMusings on what has emerged in 2021 and what hasn't.
Read more »
Canceled or Renewed: The Fate of Every TV Show In 2021 (So Far)Netflix has revealed the fate of JulieandthePhantoms. (via toofab)
Read more »
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2021: No. 5 — The WeekndThe once-underground R&B singer-songwriter scaled the most historic heights of pop success in 2021.
Read more »
TODAY's most popular recipes of 2021Convenience and comfort were key in 2021 — shocking, we know.
Read more »