© 1988, Christian Boltanski
On view
Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to the Chases High School),
1987–88
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Handbook Entry
Memory, mortality, and trauma, particularly as they pertain to the Holocaust, are central themes in Christian Boltanski’s work, as is the tension between appearance and disappearance, obfuscation and revelation. Over the course of his long career, Boltanski has worked in a variety of media, but he is best known for installations such as <em>Altar to the Chases High School</em>, in which lamps and rusty biscuit tins frame reproductions of class pictures taken in 1931 at a Jewish high school in Vienna. The design deliberately mimics that of a medieval altarpiece, with its candles, reliquaries, and painted portraits. Unlike a traditional memorial, however, the lamps that illuminate the pictures in <em>Altar to the Chases High School</em> also obscure them, effacing the individuals they represent. Deprived of both detail and context, moreover, these ghostly photographs betray little of their historical origins. In this way, the work conveys the universality of suffering as well as the insurmountable challenge of remembering — and representing — harrowing events.
More About This Object
Information
1987–88
- David Pagel, "Christian Boltanski", Arts magazine 63, no. 3 (Nov., 1988): p. 100., p. 100
- Reconstitution: Christian Boltanski, (Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1990).
- Jill Guthrie, ed., In celebration: works of art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1997)., p. 83, cat. no. 81 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2004," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 64 (2005): p. 91-135., p. 128
- Bénézit, Dictionary of artists, (Paris: Gründ, 2006)., Vol. 2: p. 769
- J.G. Castro, "Paris: Christian Boltanski Marian Goodman Gallery", Sculpture 25, no. 4 (May, 2006): p. 77-78., p. 77-78
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 56
