personnes
monumenta 2010 grand palais
paris 13 january - 21 february 2010
monumenta is one of the major international events in which an artist takes possession of an architectural space to develop his/her vision. The entire architecture of the building becomes a part of that artwork and creates dialogues between architecture, space and installation. Each year a leading international contemporary artist is invited by the french ministry of culture and communication to create an exceptional new work.
The making of this years installation,
“An artist has no life ; he is only the others' mirror”
Christian Boltanski is among those artists whose life and work foster each other. In his artworks both collective and personal memory meet and join in an incessant effort to face and surmount oblivion and death.
Born in Paris at the end of World War II, his work is deeply affected by the drama of the war and the Shoah. After a childhood of barely any schooling, rooted in the paradoxes of a familial milieu both Jewish and Christian, bourgeois and bohemian, he began teaching himself to paint from the age of fourteen, before learning about contemporary art on his own.