Christian Boltanski
Menschlich

Like many artists since the 1970s, Christian Boltanski (born 1944, died 2021, Paris) does not see the museum as a seemingly neutral ‘white cell’ for the presentation of art, but rather as a venue for idiosyncratic and obstinate representations, orders and meanings – as a playground in which the methods and forms of the museum are analysed and applied in ever new constellations. It is used as a place to tell a – fictional – story. In the process, the hierarchy of what is worthy collecting and culturally valuable is thrown into disarray, upgrading the preoccupation with the everyday and the mass-produced, the banal and the trivial, the non-extraordinary.

The artist, known in Austria only for individual works, has developed an installation for Vienna that took up the entire exhibition space of the Kunsthalle. Boltanski's theme is primarily the disappearance of the human being, combined with the search for his soul. For the artist, this disappearance moves between the poles of individuality that ‘leaves traces’ and anonymity that disappears into the masses. The furniture that Christian Boltanski used for his installation was auctioned off after the exhibition ended.