CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: COMPOSITIONS

Paris, France: Musee D'Art Moderne De La Ville De Paris, 1981. First Edition. First Printing.. Softcover. Fine/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Paris, France: Musee D'Art Moderne De La Ville De Paris, 1981. Softcover. Fine/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 50 pages. Exhibition Catalog. One of the most beautiful books on the art and achievement of Christian Boltanski. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Christian Boltanski: Regular-sized volume format. Pictorial softcovers with white titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Art by Christian Boltanski. Text/Interview by Suzanne Page. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Paris to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is exemplary in every respect. Without DJ, as issued. Published on the occasion of the landmark retrospective exhibition of the same name held at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1981. Presents Christian Boltanski's "Compositions". A virtually unknown yet no less important aspect of the artist's body of work. Inspired by children's toys and children's books, Boltanski creates his own, and in a way that Walter Benjamin, the great Modernist admirer/collector/writer on the genre, would have approved. Boltanski's compositions, as he calls them, are exquisite re-creations. It is not an accident that "recreation" means playful enjoyment, as something one does instead of work. "Les Compositions Japonaises" (1978) and "Les Compositions Occidentales" (1980) demonstrate the universality of the experience we call childhood, which for Boltanski means escape from reality rather than "innocence", the conventional notion about childhood that is false. Despite our adult fantasies about them, children are NOT innocent; they are sensitive, thoughtful beings. Since his death on July 14, 2021, tributes to Christian Boltanski focussed exclusively on his site-specific installations, completely ignoring his large body of work in the Artist Book genre, unsurpassed, perhaps matched only by Ed Ruscha's, sort of, and in a totally different vein. Now that he is dead, the grief one feels for the vanished Life is somehow mitigated by the timeless beauty of the Art. An absolute "must-have" title for Christian Boltanski collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in pencil on the front free endpaper by Christian Boltanski. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a late-modern art classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Edition/First Printing available online and despite its imperfection (slight wear on the fragile softcovers, but it's there) is still in especially fine condition: Every single internal page is clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with color plates. One of the greatest artists of the 20th century and our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).