Christian Boltanski
In my undergraduate dissertation, Second skin: used clothing in the works of Christian Boltanski and Louise Bourgeois , I researched the way that both these artists used second hand clothing in their work. I specifically looked at Boltanski's Personnes. I've written about Boltanski's hope that the piles of clothes in Personnes would smell here, but sadly the places where they were installed were too cold.
20.11.20 Here's some of my research from my dissertation which I've revisited now. I have underlined relevant sections for this module, MF7004. I am reminded that many of the themes in his work are similar to mine or to themes I'm interested in: Immersive installation, participation, using multiple senses, loss, the abject, identity and others. It's useful to revisit it.
Christian Boltanski on use of clothing
Rosenbaum- Kranson, S. (2010) Christian Boltanski, Available from: http://www.museomagazine.com/CHRISTIAN-BOLTANSKI (Accessed: 18 April 2012)
‘In all my work, from the beginning to now, there’s always this idea that used clothes are like a body. If you have lost your father, what are you going to do with his clothes? You know that the clothes belonged to the man, and you don’t know what to do with them. And also, the fact that we don’t know if we are going to survive until tomorrow, especially for people who are older—we are just walking, in a way, with mines, and the mines can go [makes sounds mimicking an explosion], and you see plenty of your friends dying, and you don’t know why you are not dead and if you’ll die tomorrow. This is something that everybody knows, more or less. But for me, it is important that there is something I want to say but also something that needs to be totally open. For the children, it’s a very funny piece because it’s colorful and you know the crane is like an amusement.’
‘For me, used clothes, a photograph of somebody, or heartbeats are the same thing. It’s always some kind of an object which represents that the subject is missing. In fact, the first idea was a little bit like a joke—I made a piece, I think, five years ago with my own heartbeats, and I thought this time it would be good not to have a photo album, but a heartbeats album, that it would be possible to go home and say, oh, I’m going to hear my grandmother tonight. And after that, I decided to collect heartbeats. But, in fact, people are not going to survive with this, it’s going to show absence.’
‘For Boltanski, found- object clothes were a sign of death and disappearance; they evoked either children in concentration camps or all the anonymous people who ever inhabited such clothing’ Bernadac, 2006, p155
BOLTANSKI: For me, used clothes, a photograph of somebody, or heartbeats are the same thing. It’s always some kind of an object which represents that the subject is missing. In fact, the first idea was a little bit like a joke—I made a piece, I think, five years ago with my own heartbeats, and I thought this time it would be good not to have a photo album, but a heartbeats album, that it would be possible to go home and say, oh, I’m going to hear my grandmother tonight. And after that, I decided to collect heartbeats. But, in fact, people are not going to survive with this, it’s going to show absence. If you go to this island in Japan [Boltanski’s heartbeat recordings are archived on Teshima Island in Japan’s Inland Sea], and if you hear the heartbeats of your grandmother, your grandmother’s going to be very dead, and she’s going to be more dead because you hear these heartbeats, and it is going to show you more that she’s absent. In fact, it’s like when you see a photo of somebody, you feel more that this person is dead.
Rosenbaum-Kranson: The secondary presence makes you feel the absence even stronger.
Immersive scale and participation: ‘What is very important for me is that the people are inside the piece and not in front of the piece. In most of my work, it’s like that, but especially here, there will be sound, you are totally inside. And also, in a way, when the public is there, the visitors are walking, and they are mostly looking down, and they are not speaking, and they become a part of the work.’ (Boltanski in Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
Multiple senses:
‘Rosenbaum-Kranson: I was actually curious about some of the variations of the piece because I know one of the major differences, obviously, between this and Personnes is that in Paris it was the dead of winter, and here, we’re in the heart of spring.
BOLTANSKI: Sure, and that’s a big difference, and in a way, it’s a pity. In Paris, it was something more—it was very cold. I refused the heat, and it was terribly cold. I hope that the smell can be here, but I’m not sure that the clothes are going to smell. It’s important for me to work with cold, or to work with smell. When you are cold, you are inside the work. If it smells, you are inside the work. If it’s very noisy, you are inside the work. And it’s this idea of being inside the work that is important to me.
Rosenbaum-Kranson: Do you think the fact that we’re now in warmer months will actually end up heightening the smell?
BOLTANSKI: I hope so, but quite frankly you don’t feel anything, you don’t smell anything, and unfortunately, the clothes are clean!
Rosenbaum-Kranson: The clothing is too clean this time?
BOLTANSKI: I think so, unfortunately.’ (Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
Universal loss: ‘ ..each one is within the piece, reading it how he or she wants to read it. For Jews here, it’s going to make them think about the Holocaust, but for people from Haiti, it’s going to make them think about the earthquake, and for a child, it’s going to make him or her think about toys. I accept all these interpretations.’ (Boltanski in Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
Identity: ‘...you can see each coat, and you can hear the heartbeats, and that means there are people’s identities. But in the mountain [of clothes], there’s no more identity because you can’t see if it’s a jacket or coat—everything is mixed together.’ (Boltanski in Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
‘Rosenbaum-Kranson: This brings up a number of questions. I guess I’ll start with this element of smell, of sound, the fact that you’re using clothing. There’s this sort of insinuation of touch as well. I was curious if you could talk about the layer of sensuality that has always been strongly present in your work.
Boltanski: ‘These shows are bodies. And the bodies smell. There were a lot of people in my work... There are always a lot of people. One of the questions in my work is unicity and the big number. But in this case, here, in the Armory, we have something like 400,000 people, I suppose. And also, in fact, it’s strange because I don’t speak directly about the Holocaust, but one of my questions about the Holocaust is the numbers. It’s easy for me to imagine one thousand people, but it’s totally impossible for me to imagine six million people. And the idea of the big number is something that’s so strange... But it’s true that there are a lot of people, and I think the only question that’s in all my work is that I believe that everybody is unique, and at the same time, everybody is so fragile....
Rosenbaum-Kranson: That idea of individuality as well as the connections between people is something that comes up a lot, for me, in your work, where there’s this element of the individual pieces but also the group. When you walk into the Drill Hall, you have this mammoth pile of clothing, which, on the one hand, is one large piece, but then, of course, it’s all these individual little bits together.
BOLTANSKI: Yes, it’s plenty of people. It’s one piece made by thousands and thousands of people. It’s the mountain, and at the same time, it’s 400,000 people. But they are no longer somebody because they are destroyed, they have no more identity.’ Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010
Rosenbaum-Kranson: You created a work about fifteen years ago in New York that also used recycled clothing, Dispersion, at the Church of the Intercession in Harlem. It was part of a larger four-site installation called “Lost: New York Projects.” For Dispersion, visitors could actually leave with the clothes.
BOLTANSKI: At the church, it was possible to buy a bag for two dollars and fill the bag with clothes. I decided to do that here at the end of the show, but the location is a little difficult. We are on Park Avenue, and it’s too rich. For me, what was important was that I believe in the resurrection. It’s like if you go to the flea market, and if you see that there is a jacket on the floor, and somebody had loved the jacket before, somebody chose it, but this person is dead or this person doesn’t like this jacket anymore—and I mean to say, “I love you, I take you.” And for this reason, I’m going to give a second life to the jacket. The jacket is going to travel with me, and I’m going to say, “oh, you are so beautiful,” and I believe that what is important for an object or for a person is to look at it and give some love. And if you give some love, you give life. And all these clothes in No Man’s Land are dead clothes. But if somebody says “you are mine,” a new life will begin. And that’s the reason I did that in the church with Tom Eccles [Curator and former Director of the Public Art Fund]. And here, I thought it would be good to finish the work, to say it’s not dead, there’s the possibility that these clothes are going to survive, but Rebecca Robertson, [President/CEO of the Park Avenue Armory] and Tom said we are on Park Avenue, and it’s a little difficult.
Rosenbaum-Kranson: I think this idea of recycling and resurrection is a really beautiful one—that things can be brought back.
BOLTANSKI: In fact, here, all these clothes are going to go back to the man who lent the clothes.
‘Using discarded clothing to symbolize humans, Boltanski comments on what he suggests to be one of the most brutal losses for mankind: the loss of identity, individuality and memories.’
Yomada, Mia, 2012, ‘Christian Boltanski’s mesmeric “No Man’s Land” draws visitors to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2012′s new Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art’ In The Japan Times, [online] August 2, Available from:http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2012/08/02/arts/christian-boltanskis-mesmeric-no-mans-land-draws-visitors-to-the-echigo-tsumari-art-triennale-2012s-new-satoyama-museum-of-contemporary-art/#.UnqUK3C-3ic [Accessed 6 November 2013]
‘This monumental work explores the signature motifs of the artist’s forty-year career - individuality, anonymity, life and death - in an immersive landscape that is both powerful and infernal. Incorporating 30 tons of discarded clothing, a 60-foot crane and the sound of human heartbeats, the installation offers an unforgettable and deeply moving experience by one of today’s most important artists.’
Park Avenue Armory, 2010, Christian Boltanski, No Man’s Land, Available from: http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/programs_events/detail/christian_boltanski/ [Accessed 6 November 2013]
On changing nature/impermanence of fabric: Curator commenting on white cotton that would yellow with age, so B. said he could change it. ‘It’s not an object but an idea. I consider what I do to be like a musical score, and anyone can play it. But each time it’s played, it means something different… Around half of the work I do is destroyed after each show, but the show can always be done again’’ (B in Garb 1997: 16, 17)
On his work not being precious: He uses lots of biscuit tins and used to pee on them to make them rust but there were too many so he used Coke instead. One time with a travelling installation, the rusted tins were wrapped in tissue paper and sent to another city. The curator insisted that the workers wore white gloves. B says : ‘ it was ridiculous because of course the gloves became red in minutes. And the biscuit tins aren’t precious.’ (B in Garb 1997: 17)
Park Avenue Armory, 2010, Christian Boltanski, No Man’s Land, Available from: http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/programs_events/detail/christian_boltanski/ [Accessed 6 November 2013]
Rosenbaum- Kranson, S. (2010) Christian Boltanski, Available from: http://www.museomagazine.com/CHRISTIAN-BOLTANSKI (Accessed: 18 April 2012)
Rosenbaum- Kranson, S. (2010) Christian Boltanski, Available from: http://www.museomagazine.com/CHRISTIAN-BOLTANSKI (Accessed: 18 April 2012)
‘In all my work, from the beginning to now, there’s always this idea that used clothes are like a body. If you have lost your father, what are you going to do with his clothes? You know that the clothes belonged to the man, and you don’t know what to do with them. And also, the fact that we don’t know if we are going to survive until tomorrow, especially for people who are older—we are just walking, in a way, with mines, and the mines can go [makes sounds mimicking an explosion], and you see plenty of your friends dying, and you don’t know why you are not dead and if you’ll die tomorrow. This is something that everybody knows, more or less. But for me, it is important that there is something I want to say but also something that needs to be totally open. For the children, it’s a very funny piece because it’s colorful and you know the crane is like an amusement.’
‘For me, used clothes, a photograph of somebody, or heartbeats are the same thing. It’s always some kind of an object which represents that the subject is missing. In fact, the first idea was a little bit like a joke—I made a piece, I think, five years ago with my own heartbeats, and I thought this time it would be good not to have a photo album, but a heartbeats album, that it would be possible to go home and say, oh, I’m going to hear my grandmother tonight. And after that, I decided to collect heartbeats. But, in fact, people are not going to survive with this, it’s going to show absence.’
‘For Boltanski, found- object clothes were a sign of death and disappearance; they evoked either children in concentration camps or all the anonymous people who ever inhabited such clothing’ Bernadac, 2006, p155
BOLTANSKI: For me, used clothes, a photograph of somebody, or heartbeats are the same thing. It’s always some kind of an object which represents that the subject is missing. In fact, the first idea was a little bit like a joke—I made a piece, I think, five years ago with my own heartbeats, and I thought this time it would be good not to have a photo album, but a heartbeats album, that it would be possible to go home and say, oh, I’m going to hear my grandmother tonight. And after that, I decided to collect heartbeats. But, in fact, people are not going to survive with this, it’s going to show absence. If you go to this island in Japan [Boltanski’s heartbeat recordings are archived on Teshima Island in Japan’s Inland Sea], and if you hear the heartbeats of your grandmother, your grandmother’s going to be very dead, and she’s going to be more dead because you hear these heartbeats, and it is going to show you more that she’s absent. In fact, it’s like when you see a photo of somebody, you feel more that this person is dead.
Rosenbaum-Kranson: The secondary presence makes you feel the absence even stronger.
Immersive scale and participation: ‘What is very important for me is that the people are inside the piece and not in front of the piece. In most of my work, it’s like that, but especially here, there will be sound, you are totally inside. And also, in a way, when the public is there, the visitors are walking, and they are mostly looking down, and they are not speaking, and they become a part of the work.’ (Boltanski in Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
Multiple senses:
‘Rosenbaum-Kranson: I was actually curious about some of the variations of the piece because I know one of the major differences, obviously, between this and Personnes is that in Paris it was the dead of winter, and here, we’re in the heart of spring.
BOLTANSKI: Sure, and that’s a big difference, and in a way, it’s a pity. In Paris, it was something more—it was very cold. I refused the heat, and it was terribly cold. I hope that the smell can be here, but I’m not sure that the clothes are going to smell. It’s important for me to work with cold, or to work with smell. When you are cold, you are inside the work. If it smells, you are inside the work. If it’s very noisy, you are inside the work. And it’s this idea of being inside the work that is important to me.
Rosenbaum-Kranson: Do you think the fact that we’re now in warmer months will actually end up heightening the smell?
BOLTANSKI: I hope so, but quite frankly you don’t feel anything, you don’t smell anything, and unfortunately, the clothes are clean!
Rosenbaum-Kranson: The clothing is too clean this time?
BOLTANSKI: I think so, unfortunately.’ (Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
Universal loss: ‘ ..each one is within the piece, reading it how he or she wants to read it. For Jews here, it’s going to make them think about the Holocaust, but for people from Haiti, it’s going to make them think about the earthquake, and for a child, it’s going to make him or her think about toys. I accept all these interpretations.’ (Boltanski in Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
Identity: ‘...you can see each coat, and you can hear the heartbeats, and that means there are people’s identities. But in the mountain [of clothes], there’s no more identity because you can’t see if it’s a jacket or coat—everything is mixed together.’ (Boltanski in Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010)
‘Rosenbaum-Kranson: This brings up a number of questions. I guess I’ll start with this element of smell, of sound, the fact that you’re using clothing. There’s this sort of insinuation of touch as well. I was curious if you could talk about the layer of sensuality that has always been strongly present in your work.
Boltanski: ‘These shows are bodies. And the bodies smell. There were a lot of people in my work... There are always a lot of people. One of the questions in my work is unicity and the big number. But in this case, here, in the Armory, we have something like 400,000 people, I suppose. And also, in fact, it’s strange because I don’t speak directly about the Holocaust, but one of my questions about the Holocaust is the numbers. It’s easy for me to imagine one thousand people, but it’s totally impossible for me to imagine six million people. And the idea of the big number is something that’s so strange... But it’s true that there are a lot of people, and I think the only question that’s in all my work is that I believe that everybody is unique, and at the same time, everybody is so fragile....
Rosenbaum-Kranson: That idea of individuality as well as the connections between people is something that comes up a lot, for me, in your work, where there’s this element of the individual pieces but also the group. When you walk into the Drill Hall, you have this mammoth pile of clothing, which, on the one hand, is one large piece, but then, of course, it’s all these individual little bits together.
BOLTANSKI: Yes, it’s plenty of people. It’s one piece made by thousands and thousands of people. It’s the mountain, and at the same time, it’s 400,000 people. But they are no longer somebody because they are destroyed, they have no more identity.’ Rosenbaum- Kranson 2010
Rosenbaum-Kranson: You created a work about fifteen years ago in New York that also used recycled clothing, Dispersion, at the Church of the Intercession in Harlem. It was part of a larger four-site installation called “Lost: New York Projects.” For Dispersion, visitors could actually leave with the clothes.
BOLTANSKI: At the church, it was possible to buy a bag for two dollars and fill the bag with clothes. I decided to do that here at the end of the show, but the location is a little difficult. We are on Park Avenue, and it’s too rich. For me, what was important was that I believe in the resurrection. It’s like if you go to the flea market, and if you see that there is a jacket on the floor, and somebody had loved the jacket before, somebody chose it, but this person is dead or this person doesn’t like this jacket anymore—and I mean to say, “I love you, I take you.” And for this reason, I’m going to give a second life to the jacket. The jacket is going to travel with me, and I’m going to say, “oh, you are so beautiful,” and I believe that what is important for an object or for a person is to look at it and give some love. And if you give some love, you give life. And all these clothes in No Man’s Land are dead clothes. But if somebody says “you are mine,” a new life will begin. And that’s the reason I did that in the church with Tom Eccles [Curator and former Director of the Public Art Fund]. And here, I thought it would be good to finish the work, to say it’s not dead, there’s the possibility that these clothes are going to survive, but Rebecca Robertson, [President/CEO of the Park Avenue Armory] and Tom said we are on Park Avenue, and it’s a little difficult.
Rosenbaum-Kranson: I think this idea of recycling and resurrection is a really beautiful one—that things can be brought back.
BOLTANSKI: In fact, here, all these clothes are going to go back to the man who lent the clothes.
‘Using discarded clothing to symbolize humans, Boltanski comments on what he suggests to be one of the most brutal losses for mankind: the loss of identity, individuality and memories.’
Yomada, Mia, 2012, ‘Christian Boltanski’s mesmeric “No Man’s Land” draws visitors to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2012′s new Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art’ In The Japan Times, [online] August 2, Available from:http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2012/08/02/arts/christian-boltanskis-mesmeric-no-mans-land-draws-visitors-to-the-echigo-tsumari-art-triennale-2012s-new-satoyama-museum-of-contemporary-art/#.UnqUK3C-3ic [Accessed 6 November 2013]
‘This monumental work explores the signature motifs of the artist’s forty-year career - individuality, anonymity, life and death - in an immersive landscape that is both powerful and infernal. Incorporating 30 tons of discarded clothing, a 60-foot crane and the sound of human heartbeats, the installation offers an unforgettable and deeply moving experience by one of today’s most important artists.’
Park Avenue Armory, 2010, Christian Boltanski, No Man’s Land, Available from: http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/programs_events/detail/christian_boltanski/ [Accessed 6 November 2013]
On changing nature/impermanence of fabric: Curator commenting on white cotton that would yellow with age, so B. said he could change it. ‘It’s not an object but an idea. I consider what I do to be like a musical score, and anyone can play it. But each time it’s played, it means something different… Around half of the work I do is destroyed after each show, but the show can always be done again’’ (B in Garb 1997: 16, 17)
On his work not being precious: He uses lots of biscuit tins and used to pee on them to make them rust but there were too many so he used Coke instead. One time with a travelling installation, the rusted tins were wrapped in tissue paper and sent to another city. The curator insisted that the workers wore white gloves. B says : ‘ it was ridiculous because of course the gloves became red in minutes. And the biscuit tins aren’t precious.’ (B in Garb 1997: 17)
Park Avenue Armory, 2010, Christian Boltanski, No Man’s Land, Available from: http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/programs_events/detail/christian_boltanski/ [Accessed 6 November 2013]
Rosenbaum- Kranson, S. (2010) Christian Boltanski, Available from: http://www.museomagazine.com/CHRISTIAN-BOLTANSKI (Accessed: 18 April 2012)