Christian Boltanski (born 1944) is a French sculptor, photographer, painter and filmmaker, most notable for his photography installations and contemporary French Conceptual style.
Boltanski’s work is largely inspired by the holocaust, something that greatly affected his family and went on to affect him.
Boltanski’s artwork ‘Photo Album of Family D’ had a very similar theme to my ‘Stolen Journey’/’Stolen Journey II’, being that he wanted to tell the story of the family in his photographs however he was not aware of who they were or what sequence these photos went in. Instead of using the original images Boltanski re-photographed them all, meaning that the standard of the images had lost some of their original quality and definition. Boltanski has used this as a distancing method; the effect of blurring and loss of significant features leaves the people in the images only as symbols, meaning we cannot attach to them as individuals so easily. This is something Boltanski tends to do recurrently, also being evident in other pieces such as ‘Autel De Lycee Chases’ (Fig 4).
Similarly to Boltanski, I have re photographed and photocopied the photographs I have used; however I had not intended this as a distancing method. If anything, my motives are vastly different: I find it hard to distance myself from the photo or alter it in any way, being why I have reproduced them so that the original is not damaged.
Very much like ‘Photo album of the Family D’ I feel ‘Stolen Journey’ really gives a very nostalgic feeling and, despite the photos displaying my family, it is actually very reflective for the viewer: instead of looking at my family’s story and memories, the observer thinks back to their own.
‘Although Boltanski at first saw the piece as a record of the family’s existence and the significant events of their lives her later stated that rather than teaching about the family D, they sent the viewer back to his or her own past.’ (Gibbons, 2007. P. 77)
Sources
Gibbons, J (2007). Contemporary Art and Memory. London and New York: I.B. Taurus & Co Ltd.
