CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: MONTEDIPIETA/MONTE DI PIETA

Milan, Italy: Edizione Charta, 2002. First Edition. First Printing.. Softcover. Fine/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Milan, Italy: Edizione Charta, 2002. Softcover. Fine/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 72 pages. Site-specific Exhibition, presented as an Artist Book. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. 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. Introductory Essay by Sergio Troisi. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Milan, Italy to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is exemplary in every respect. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Christian Boltanski's "Montedipieta". The Pieta Bank. Memories embedded in everyday objects that Boltanski presents in one of his most sublime installations: "Enormous rooms which once belonged to pawnbrokers of Palazzo Branciforte, the walls lined with shelves built back in 1801, when the Palazzo was taken over by the famous bank, Monte di Pieta" (Publisher's blurb) . In them, Boltanski uses lights to stunning effect, as if these "throwaway" objects were exalted, sacred objects, worthy of worship. For him, they are evocative relics of a collective past, and represent the restoration of anonymous human beings, to him, one of every contemporary artist's most valuable tasks. It has certainly been his non-ideological artistic mission in a career that spanned the last quarter of the 20th century and the first twenty-one years of our time. No artist pursued the restorative Archive Project with the same dedication, seriousness, and ardor as Boltanski did, always risking ideological attacks from both the Left and the Right in the process. 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 boldly and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the half-title page by Christian Boltanski. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. 40 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). ISBN 8881583097.