Christian Boltanski - Unoriginal Sins

26 Jul LE BLAGEUR. 1974. ONE OF 100 SIGNED & NUMBERED PHOTOGRAPHS WITH HAND APPLIED COLOUR.

Posted at 20:16h in PRINTS

Paris: n.p., 1974
100 x 75cm, hand applied gouache, oil crayon on black and white photograph. This was one of two works taken from the Saynètes comiques series issued as an edition. Boltanski pretended to take on different personalities as if in a Mummer play - here "the joker" laughing and shaking a stick (representing a joker's musical stick). Wearing an anachronistic suit and hat there is no effort taken in trying to make the work realistic - the artist pretending is the important aspect of the image.
Each example of this print was overpainted by Boltanski in gouache and oil crayon adding a further layer of "falseness" - the work is not a colour photograph but pretends to be.
One of 100 signed and numbered examples in VG+ condition. In glass and wood frame.

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19 May QUELQUES SOUVENIRS DE LA PREMIERE COMMUNION D’UNE FILLETTE RECUEILLIS ET DECRITS PAR CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1974. ONE OF 25 COPIES SIGNED & MARKED H.C.

Posted at 20:02h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Editions Georges Fall, 1974
22 x 16cm, 16pp (self cover). Artist's book which show objects from Annette Messager's first communion along with three photographs of a young girl (not Messager) preparing for the ceremony. The images are "representational" of the various objects and not the actual items used in Boltanski's partner's life. Each has an objective description below as if in a historical journal. Staples are a bit rusty else VG+. Scarce.

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09 May LES MORTS POUR RIRE DE CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1974.

Posted at 14:36h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Dudweiler: Edition A.Q., 1974.
20.9 x 14.8cm, 32pp plus card covers with printed tipped on title label. First edition of this artist's book which again has photographic images of Boltanski dressed in suit and hat miming various methods of suicide - hanging, cutting one's throat or arms, drownings which all are shown in a second photograph to be fake - the knife is plastic, the drowning with a brick around the neck is only in a bowl of water, the hanging is from a rope that is not attached at either end.
However the last image of suicide is of the artist shooting himself in the head with a gun. That photograph has no associated proof of "fake" image so one may well assume the joke is on Boltanski himself as it was not fake, and he has in fact died.
This edition was printed in only 150 copies with 20 "du tete" copies and is very hard to find indeed. This copy is in VG+ condition although the label is slightly marked by the glue coming though the cheap paper. Reference: Flay Boltanski Catalogue Page 112.

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08 May AFFICHE. 1974.

Posted at 22:05h in EPHEMERA

London/Eindhoven/Grenoble: Whitechapel Art Gallery/Van Abbemuseum/Musee de Grenoble, 1974
15 x 10.5cm, 2pp artist postcard with a reproduction of a poster "Les Malheurs de Bebe" verso usual postcard design. VG+.

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18 Apr DESCRIPTION DES 34 REGLES ET TECHNIQUES UTILISEES EN JUIN 1972 PAR UN ENFANT DE 9 ANS. 1974.

Posted at 09:03h in EPHEMERA

Paris: Galerie Sonnabend, 1974
10.5 x 15cm, 1pp typographic announcement card for Boltanski's twenty-first first solo show and the third at Sonnabend. The work displayed were photographs of the artist pretending to be a nine year old boy and reliving (supposed) memories from his past. This is a mailed copy to M. Berg sent to the latter from Boltanski with handwritten address.
The artist's book of the same title had recently been published by Berg Verlag in Copenhagen - which was M. Berg's own imprint and a book he had commissioned from Boltanski. VG+.

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08 Feb NEWSPAPER CUTTING SENT TO BOLTANSKI BY M. BERG. 8 FEBUARY 1974.

Posted at 08:39h in LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS

Copenhague: Information Tirsdag, 8 Feb 1974
29 x 38cm, newspaper clipping from the Danish newspaper sent to Boltanski by M. Berg with an article which mentions Boltanski in a large review and reproduced one of the artist's archival works - displaying the belongings of a death citizen, Paper a bit browned and folded for mailing else VG....

19 Jan CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1974. FIRST DANISH EXHIBITION.

Posted at 18:58h in POSTERS

London: Whitechapel Gallery, 1990
57 x 42cm, black on cream offset lithographic exhibition poster with an image of the famous Boltanski at 5 years and 3 months apart. Artist's first show in Denmark. VG+.

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27 Oct CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1973. ARTIST’S FIRST SOLO SHOW IN AMERICA.

Posted at 19:30h in EPHEMERA

Paris: Galerie Sonnabend, n.d. (1973)
11.5 x 16.5cm, 1pp typographic announcement card for Boltanski's first solo show in America, only months before he has his first show outside of France in Oxford in the UK. A mailed copy with handwritten address (not by Boltanski). VG+ although slight marks from the franking process. Scarce.
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17 Oct OM SIG SELV. 1973. PAGEWORK IN LOUISIANA REVY NR. 2. NOT IN ANY CATALOGUE RAISONNE

Posted at 17:31h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Copenhagen: Louisiana Revy, 1973
35 x 25cm, 48pp plus wrappers. A single number of this artist's journal associated with the museum. This issue (n 2) has an original two-page contribution by Botlanski - a text translated in to Danish, "OM SIG SELV" which translates to "ABOUT YOURSELF" and is a text taken from a long interview with Uffe Harder. and a page of photographs from an uncredited "Inventory" work showing 40 belongings to an unnamed individual. Not referenced in any catalogue raisonne. VG+.

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19 Sep EXPRESSIONS VARIEES DE LA DOULEUR (D’APRES LE MANUEL DE PSYCHOLGIE DE G. DUMAS) INTERPRETEES PAR CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1973. FRONTISPIECE TO ‘QUATRE HISTOIRE DE MA VIE INQUIETE.’

Posted at 20:48h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Editions Pierre Jean Oswald, 1973
18 x 11.4cm, 96pp plus card covers. This novel cum auto-biography was written under pseudonym by the artist's mother (this was not known if suspected until the mid-80s) and Boltanski provided the frontispiece for the book with 6 b/w images of him attempting to act out various facial expressions associated with sadness. The photographs were taken in a photo-booth.
This copy of the book is an ex-library copy with various stampings and labels inside and on spine but copies are extremely hard to find in any condition.

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04 Sep CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. 1973. INCLUDES AN INVENTORY OF THE BELONGINGS OF A UNIDENTIFIED PERSON FROM JERUSALEM.

Posted at 09:16h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Jerusalem: Musse d'Israel, 1973
20.5 x 18cm, 48pp plus 12 transparent overlays on some pages and card covers. Exhibition catalogue for the first Boltanski exhibition in Israel and also the first time that the artist visited the Jewish state.
This catalogue is notable for a Inventory of an inhabitant of Jerusalem displaying 300 items in the form of photographic contact strips (a slightly different format from previous Inventories).
There is an interview in French with Boltanski and other texts in Hebrew. B/w illustrations throughout. ...

19 Aug INVENTAIRE DES OBJETS APPARTENANT A UN HABITANT D’OXFORD PRECEDE D’UN AVANT PRPOS ET SUIVI DE QUELQUES RESPONSES A MA PROPOSITION. 1973.

Posted at 20:19h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Munster: Westfalischer Kunstverein, 1973
21 x 14.8cm, 80pp plus card covers. Artist's book which coincided with the title museum exhibition. The belongings of a person from Oxford are shown in 344 b/w small photographs as displayed in the museum. This is an archiving of someone's life through their ownership of things - allowing the viewer to make an interpretation of character despite the anonymity of the person.
This exhibition had been previously shown in the UK at Oxford and a similar publication made.
Boltanski's widely circulated proposal letter sent to various institutions to create the exhibition is reproduced as foreword in three languages and it is clearly important to the artist to have this text on view. One is tempted to assume out of revenge for those institutions that turned down his idea but it is hard to see the amiable artist as having such motives. When one realises that the rejection letters from a number of institutions are also reproduced at the back of the book thus making the artist's point a second time one can gleam a different motive: the lack of response to the idea becomes part of the project - the rejection of such a cataloguing of someone's life as perhaps being uninteresting by the Museum boards is an important marker to how society discards citizens who are deemed "unimportant". Texts in German, French and English. VG+.

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