23 maart 2015

Christian Boltanski #2


Christian Boltanski dans son atelier, 2009. (bron: maxicours)



"Is it possible to earn your old-age pension with selling your life? This might sound a bit strange but it is true: The french artist Christian Boltanski actually sold his life to David Walsh, an australian millionaire who collects art. That seems a bit like selling your soul to the devil, so what does selling his life exactly mean?

It is simple: The artist recieves a monthly payment and therefore allows David Walsh to film and show Boltanski’s life. There are three webcams installed in Boltanski’s atelier recording the artist 24/7 until he dies. Capturing his work, eating and living. The footage is displayed in a cave in the hills of Tasmania via satellite.

The buyer, David Walsh seems to like it risky, not only because he is a professional gambler. This project would only pay off for him, if Boltanski lives for at least eight more years, so he could collect enough footage on his work and life.

In his work, the artist who was born as a son of an Ukrainian Jewish father in Paris shortly after the end of German occupation often deals with the finitude of being and human effort against forgetting. Christian Boltanski said once: Humans die twice. First physically and for the second time when the picture and memory of the person fades.

Christian likes works in progress of unknown duration which only death will put an end to: His recent project “Storage Memory” are ten one-minute original films he will monthly send to his subscribers, making up, with the passage of time, a kind of self-portrait depicting his experiences and emotions." (bron: Sense of Time)

> Christian Boltanski

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