07 Jul

Posted at 21:05h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Hamburg/Paris: Grossman Verlag/Edition Sonnabend, 1972
20.8 x 14.6cm, 32pp plus card covers. Thirty-two b/w images of the adult artist recreating his early life as a young child with descriptions which ignore the fact that Boltanski is not a child. The photographs were all taken by Annette Messager. This is one of 500 copies published. The cover has a couple of brown marks (possible foxing) else VG+.
JOINT:
Two 19 x 12.5cm, 1pp b/w inserts with English and French translations of the legends.

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19 May

Posted at 19:06h in EPHEMERA

Fontainebleau: Musee Municipal Du Costume Militaire, 1972
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp typographic announcement card for a joint show with Jean Le Gac.
On the reverse is an important joint text by the artists which stresses the reasons why they were exhibiting in such a historic museum:

Our work is an attempt to find in the present the means to transmit and preserve the experience that we have of artistic activity: an intellectual journey, marked out by relics (photos, objects, fragments of texts ...

25 Mar

Posted at 15:29h in EXHIBITION CATALOGUES

Luzern: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1972 30 x21cm, unpaginated (c. 300pp) plus card covers. Exhibition catalogue which covers four solo shows including Boltanski alongside Ben, Le Gac and Fernie. Each artist has a section for their own works - Boltanski's reprints Reconstitution de Gestes Effectues par Christian Boltanski and Album de Photo de la Famille D. 19390 - 1965 consisting of 138 found photographs which Boltanski organised into a family album. Texts in French. Mild colouration of white card covers else VG+. Scarce. ...

19 Feb

Posted at 13:23h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Berlin: AQ Verlag, n.d (1972)
20 x 20.7cm, unpaginated (c. 112pp) plus pictorial wrappers. A single number of this photographic and art journal - here Boltanski has two original contributions - 10 SCENES DE LA VIE ENFANTINE DE CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI INTERPRETEE LE 12 JUIN 1971 PAR FRANCOISE GUINIOU ET LET PETITS JEAN ET MARTINE and ESSAI DE RECONSTITUTION DES 46 JOURS QUE PRECEDERENT LA MORT DE FRANCOISE GUINIOU (EXTRAITS). Neither to our knowledge is reproduced elsewhere. The former being six b/w images of children acting out scenes from Boltanski's supposed memories. The second the same photographs and more displayed as contact prints from a film role. One is expected (one presumes) to see the latter as the documentation of the previous project and that Francoise Guiniou somehow died soon after the photoshoot.
There are other original pageworks by Paul-Armand Gette, Jean Le Gac, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Jochen Gerz and Anthony McCall.
Not in any catalogue raisonne.

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24 May

Posted at 11:49h in PRINTS

Paris: Chorus, 1971 17.4 x 34.7cm offset cartridge paper with a text: "essai de reconstitution effectué par christian boltanski le 24 mai 1971 d'un tableau peint par Jacques Monory en mars 1971 d'après des documents photographiques pris le 7 novembre 1970 au parc de saint-cloud." above which is an original b/w silver gelatine photograph tipped on. The image is a reconstruction of an earlier event that Boltanski's friend Monory had held in November 1970 and turned into an artwork. Boltanski recreated the work with different participants (other than Annette Messager). Signed and numbeed in pencil by Boltanski from an edition of 120 copies. VG+ JOINT: Paris: Chorus, 1971 17.4 x 34.7cm offset printed blue and black duotone - the original image created by Monory from the picnic on 7 November 1970 in the Parc de Saint-Cloud. There are differences from the original to Boltanski's attempt to recreate (for example the child in the right foreground carrying a long stick). This is one of 120 examples also signed and numbered by Monory. However this work has found behind broken glass and there are a number of surface scratches on the print. ...

17 May

Posted at 17:32h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Opus International, 1971
27 x 18cm, 136pp plus card covers. A single number of this art journal which has an original Boltanski pagework - Recit-Souvenir - a text with three associated photographs.
The text typed by Boltanski gives a history of the artist's grandparents and how they come to live in Paris.
The photographs claim to be of the grandmother aged 3, a samovar that she supposedly stole from her house when she ran away from Odessa to be with David Boltanski (the grandfather) and a modern photograph of the house they lived in. As ever the veracity of all of that information is impossible to be sure of. VG although the glue in the perfect binding has started to peel after nearly 50 years.
Reference: Flay Catalogue Page 56.

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08 May

Posted at 19:32h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Malmo: New Eter, 1971
29 x 23cm, printed envelope content of five internal loose sheets -- each 27 x 21.5. 1pp. The Boltanski contribution is a printed offset image of the adult artist bending over showing here his bed was situated in his room for the first nine years of this life.
Other sheets have original contributions by Paul-Armand Gette (Photograph of a tree stump and its exact location), le Gac - a written text, and Ben Vautier - an original found photograph of women practicing fencing which is stamped Ben Vautier certifies this to be a work of Flux Art (each copy had a different photograph). The final sheet is a colophon with a business card stapled to the card sheet and nothing else.
All fine although there is a slight mark from the staple on the colophon on Boltanski's contribution - all in VG+ envelope. A scarce item. Reference: Flay Boltanski Catalogue Page 54.

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05 May

Posted at 16:53h in EPHEMERA

Venice: Galerie De La Salle, n.d. (1971)
10.5 x 15cm, 2pp b/w postcard issued as an edition during the group show "Les Paravents" held in Venice. On the front is the well known work where the artist shows two photographs of himself side by side with a gap of 5 years and three months between them. He looks older of course, time is disappearing as is his life. VG+. Scarce.

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23 Mar

Posted at 10:34h in ARTIST’S BOOKS

Paris: Sonnabend Gallery, 1971
22 x 13.5cm, 8pp (self cover). The artist's fifth book which has an alternative title: "ESSAIS DE RECONSTITUTION D'OBJETS AYAN APPPARTENU A CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI ENTRE 1948 ET 1954". The book consists of 45 examples of objects from his childhood that Boltanski has tried to recreate in a variety of methods - they are mostly in text description but there are four small b/w images of some of the items. The items are mostly in clay or similar modelling materials and shown in metal drawers as if in an exhibition.
An important book which reflects Boltanski's interest in metal storage and the authority that such placements give to the objects. In VG condition but with some rust on staples.
JOINT:
Hand addressed envelope by Boltanski sent to M. Berg in Copenhagen. Franked printed stamp.
Referenced in Flay Boltanski Catalogue Page 48.

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