TIME

Ostfildern-ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. Ostfildern-ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 160 pages. Exhibition Monograph on subject. One of the most important and beautiful books on the art and achievement of Christian Boltanski. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Christian Boltanski and Hatje Cantz: Oversize-volume format. Blue hard boards with titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Art by Christian Boltanski. Essays by Aleida Assmann and Ralf Beil. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in Germany to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Christian Boltanski's "Time". New work as well as previous work seen in a new, iridescent light. The emphasis Boltanski places on the most fragile objects to evoke our "struggle against death" (his phrase) is the central idea behind his art. As such, Boltanski's work is not "about" death but "against" it, through art rather than polemics. His obsession with death is often mistakenly seen as acceptance or even embrace of it when as Boltanski himself repeatedly says, the role of memory is to insist on the sanctity of human life, that whenever we remember those who have died, we remember their lives, not their death, and that memorial, archive, and elegy, which all pause Time, ultimately affirm Life. At the same time, Boltanski acknowledges, more than any other artist of our time, that death is a fact of life, and that even as we struggle against it, we intuitively realize from a series of "death experiences" throughout our lives that denying the reality of death is more dangerous than our fear of it. "The task is to create a formal work that is, at the same time, recognized by the spectator as a sentimentally charged object. The artist is someone who holds a mirror and those who look in the mirror recognize themselves but each one sees a different image" (Christian Boltanski). Now that he is (really) 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 black ink-pen on the title page by Christian Boltanski. It is signed directly on the page 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 3775718257.