NOCES VÉNITIENNES

ÉVÉNEMENT EVENT
such as photographs, clothes and biscuit tins he relentlessly
explores questions of universality, chance, necessity and death.
Which makes him more Balzac than Proust. The Balzac that wrote, in
The Harlot High and Low, “Still, in these twenty years I have seen a
great deal of the seamy side of the world. I have known its back-stairs,
and I have discerned, in the march of events, a Power which you call
Providence and I call Chance, and which my companions call Luck”.
“I am not a believer,” says Boltanski. “What I know is, there’s nothing
more human than the desire to know. We are all looking for a key to
the lock. You could also say that each person has his own personal key.
I myself don’t have one. Art doesn’t have one. I’m content to ask questions.
My work is about making small parables, sending stimuli,
something an exhibition-goer will fi nish himself, with what he is. Just
like at the cinema, where we can sit next to each other but never see
the same thing.” But it is here that the universal takes on its full force.
Having abandoned the idea of naming all the inhabitants of the
Earth for the year 2000, the artist, who refers to himself as an “expressionist
painter at the end of the 20th century”, started on a new,
equally extraordinary project to “store” the heartbeats of the entire
world. Boltanski recorded these heartbeats, including those of exhibition-goers,
over the years and gathered them together as part of an
installation called “The Heart Archive” on an island in the Inland Sea
of Japan. “It’s not the material or lasting nature of my works that
counts, but the experience they propose, how they call things into
question,” he says. “I am touched that this Japanese island is gradually
becoming a pilgrimage. In the game we have to play, we know that
we always lose. It is impossible to really keep that which was. A photograph
or recording of the voice of a grandmother will never bring her
back. Each one of us is unique but will be replaced. What counts is that
life goes on.” From his initial “psychoanalytical shock” he has arrived
12 ... CMAG _ JUILLET-AOÛT/JULY-AUGUST 2011
at a place of peace. He describes himself as poorly read, saying that all
his knowledge is purely oral. But here his thoughts echo those of the
poet Hölderlin, who was considered insane: “Where danger grows,
that which saves grows too”. Much as we continue to like Schubert,
who was adored by the Nazis.
“I’ve thought a lot about chance. I am a survivor, born in Paris from a
Jewish father, during the war, at a time when my mother should have
aborted me. But I’m here, I’m lucky. I’ve always done what I wanted to
do.” Boltanski’s installation for the Biennale, “Chance”, takes a lighter
approach than usual, blending the concepts of refl ection and casino. In
the gardens of the French Pavilion, the artist has installed seven chairs
that when sat on whisper “Is this the last time?”. In the central part of
the installation, a construction of scaffolding is entwined and encircled
by a printing press-like ribbon that scrolls the faces of 600 one-day-old
infants. The machine stops randomly with the sound of an alarm bell.
One of the faces is lit up. An individual is chosen. But for what? In a side
room, counters display in real time the number of births and deaths in
the world. “The system is connected to the Internet. Life wins out, with
eight births to fi ve deaths every second. The balance is always positive
at the end of each day.” In the room at the back, a video screen composes
grotesque portraits from the fragments of three different faces,
using photographs of 60 Polish children and 60 others from the “Dead
Swiss” series that Boltanski has used for 20 years (“The Swiss have no
historical reason to die,” he says). Visitors can stop the process by pressing
on a button; if the three parts of the image match, as in a casino,
they win the work on show. “My work consists in making a collage in a
given space. It’s not a work you look at but one in which you are,” adds
the painter as he sees us to the door of his studio. The banal garage
door closes on a humdrum residential neighbourhood. But the wager
with the devil goes on. And unfortunately for the Australian art collector,
in the end, life wins.
+++
INVITÉ OFFICIEL
Christian Boltanski a été choisi pour
le Pavillon français en 2010, après
sélection par un comité d’experts.
OFFICIAL GUEST
Christian Boltanski was selected to
represent France in Venice by a
committee of experts.
+++
EN LIBRAIRIE
Un ouvrage monographique sur
Christian Boltanski est paru pour
l’inauguration du Pavillon français.
NEW BOOK
A monograph on Christian Boltanski
has been published for the inauguration
of the French Pavilion.
SUR UN FIL
Coïncidence ? Le Pavillon français
a été érigé en 1912 par un ingénieur
vénitien, un certain Finzi. De son
prénom… Faust ! Rehaussé de
festons par le maître verrier et
ferronnier Umberto Bellotto, cet
édifi ce agrémenté de colonnes
ioniques se veut une interprétation
de l’idéal classique du 17 e siècle.
En saillie de la façade, le vestibule
ovale ouvre sur une surface totale de
420 m 2 , avec un vaste salon central
fl anqué de trois salles périphériques.
Malicieux, Christian Boltanski avait
proposé à son homologue allemand
d’échanger leurs espaces ! Refus poli.
Artiste vibrionnant, Christoph
Schlingensief ne verra pas sa propre
installation au Pavillon allemand. Ce
sera malheureusement un hommage.
Il est mort d’un cancer du poumon.
Lui qui n’était même pas fumeur.
Décidément, le hasard…
ON A WIRE
Tying in perfectly with Boltanski’s latest
artistic venture, the Venetian engineer who
designed the French Pavilion was called Faust
Finzi! Decorated with festoons by the master
glassmaker and wrought iron craftsman
Umberto Bellotto, the ionic-columned
building is an interpretation of the classical
ideal of the 17th century. The oval vestibule
opens on to a 420-m 2 surface with a huge
central room fl anked by three smaller rooms.
The mischievous Boltanski had asked his
German counterpart, the prolifi c Christoph
Schlingensief, to swap places with him. This
request was politely refused. Schlingensief’s
installation at the German Pavilion will now
be a retrospective homage, as he recently died
of lung cancer. Despite the fact that he didn’t
smoke. Life is decidedly a game of chance.