CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI: FAIRE PART

Siena, Italy: Palazzo Delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, 2002. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Siena, Italy: Palazzo Delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea, 2002. Hardcover. As New/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 120 pages. Retrospective Monograph on subject. One of the most valuable and beautiful retrospectives on the art and achievement of Christian Boltanski. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Christian Boltanski: Regular-sized volume format. Pale gray cloth boards, as issued. Art by Christian Boltanski. Text in the Italian original and felicitous English translation by various Italian contributors: Scholars, art historians, and specialists on Boltanski. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Siena, Italy to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is exemplary in every respect. In publisher's original vertical wraparound bellyband. Without DJ, as issued. Published on the occasion of the landmark retrospective exhibition of the same name held at the Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea in Siena, Italy in 2002. Presents Christian Boltanski's "Faire Part". Art means sharing. Brings together all of the artist's key site-specific installations, re-contextualized by him in one of his most important retrospective exhibitions. His mature work from the 1990's, the last decade of the 20th century, and one of the most productive for the artist, is the emphasis. Although he is, of course, a French artist, Boltanski's work has been exhibited widely in Europe, in the United States, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, in other cultures such as Japan and Korea, attesting to the cosmopolitan universality of his art. As retrospectives go, "Faire Part" remains one of the most sublime. Since his death on July 14, 2021, tributes to Christian Boltanski focussed exclusively on his site-specific installations, so beautifully shown in this volume, completely ignoring his two other incomparable achievements: First, the series of short films that he filmed, in each of which an "accident" takes place, and he dies. Boltanski stored the films in vintage biscuit tin cans, which he salvaged, accumulating endless rows of them, a "throwaway", quotidian artifact that he single-handedly elevated to an art object - therefore as something sacred - and now feverishly coveted as such by collectors. Second, Boltanski's large body of work in the Artist Book genre will remain 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 boldly and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the wraparound bellyband by Christian Boltanski. It is signed directly on the bellyband itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great art book. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with black-and-white and 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) . ISBN 8873360459.