Catherine Grenier

Christian Boltanski est né à Paris en 1944. Il est aujourd'hui l'une des figures incontournables de l'histoire de l'art contemporain français et international, auteur d'une oeuvre de référence qui a su toucher un large public. Depuis la fin des années 1960, sa pratique artistique polymorphe traite d'une manière singulière des thèmes de l'enfance, de l'identité, de la mort et du temps. A partir d'un vocabulaire formel et de matériaux simples - photographies, archives, vêtements -, il met en scène la rencontre entre mémoire personnelle et mémoire collective, faisant notamment revivre le souvenir des tragédies du XXe siècle. Son oeuvre, qui se déploie des arts plastiques au spectacle, offre une réflexion sur le statut de l'image, du témoignage et de l'art. L'essai rétrospectif de Catherine Grenier, historienne de l'art, directrice adjointe du Centre Pompidou, revient sur quarante années de création, du premier atelier sous les combles jusqu'à Monumenta au Grand Palais, retraçant le parcours d'un artiste profondément humain et humaniste. Jean-Hubert Martin, historien de l'art, porte un regard personnel sur Chance, exposée au pavillon français de la biennale de Venise 2011 et sur les récents projets insulaires de l'artiste. Ces textes sont accompagnés d'une conversation de Christian Boltanski avec Daniel Mendelsohn, écrivain, essayiste et critique littéraire américain ainsi que d'une biographie rédigée, et de documents fac-similés.

Boltanski

Christian Boltanski

Christian Boltanski's votive installations, archives and objects, revolving around the fragile polarities of memory and amnesia, identity and anonymity, have made him one of the world's most renowned contemporary artists. And yet, despite the centrality of biography and testimony to his work, Boltanski's own story is little known and has never been fully told. Published on the occasion of the artist's sixty-fifth birthday, The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski, written in the form of a book-length interview (which the artist likens to a "psychoanalysis" or "confession") with the art historian Catherine Grenier, is Boltanski's oral autobiography. In it, he recounts his unusual wartime childhood ("my mother hid my father under the floorboards. He stayed there for a year and a half, between two floors in the house. He'd come out from time to time--I'm living proof of that "), his career, friendships and marriage, successes and regrets, his approaches to art and teaching, how he created various installations, his relations with dealers and the public, and other matters that illuminate as never before his complex, enigmatic works. Boltanski is refreshingly phlegmatic about the realities of the world (art and otherwise), and he relates his remarkable stories--some enormously amusing, others tragic--with a matter-of-factness and self-deprecating humor that highlight his capacity for humane responsiveness. As both the self-portrait of a major contemporary artist and a frank, fascinating memoir, this is a document of capital importance.

The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski

Lena Fritsch

Frances Morris

Mathilde Lecuyer

Alberto Giacometti is one of the few artists of the last century whose work is almost more recognisable than his name. His distinctive elongated figures are inescapably associated with the post-war climate of existentialist despair. However, the story of Giacometti's evolution, from his first professional works of art through his surrealist compositions, to the emergence of his mature style has rarely been explored fully and in depth. This comprehensive overview of Giacometti's career focuses on the art, the people and the events that influenced him, and on the original and experimental way in which he approached and developed his work. An illustrated glossary of texts on his life and work is accompanied by a plate section of strikingly beautiful illustrations of his sculptures, paintings and drawings as well as sketchbooks, decorative works and photographs from the Foundation Alberto et Annette Giacometti archive some of which have never been published before. 00Exhibition: Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom (09.05.2017-10.09.2017).

Giacometti

Robert Storr

Gay Gassmann

The groundbreaking sculptor's most comprehensive monograph to date Jean-Michel Othoniel is an artist who creates sculptures that explore themes of fragility, transformation, and ephemerality. Using the repetition of such modular elements as bricks or beads, his work deploys various strategies that hint at loss and despair - cracks in his objects' perfect surfaces, negative spaces and, early in his career, transient materials such as sulfur. The most authoritative study of the artist's work to date, it includes intimate gallery pieces as well as monumental public commissions around the world.

Jean-Michel Othoniel

Sébastien Delot

Cette rétrospective offre plusieurs contrepoints de l'oeuvre de l'artiste. Nombreux sont les liens entre le sculpteur singulier et les collections du LaM, notamment son attrait pour les arts extra-occidentaux.Venant multiplier les points de vue sur l’artiste, ces contrepoints interrogeront notamment la pratique de Giacometti dans l’art contemporain (à travers une oeuvre-hommage d’Annette Messager) ou l’art brut (dans le travail de Carlo Zinelli), son attraction pour la poésie au travers des ouvrages qu’il a illustrés (René Char, Michel Leiris, Léna Leclercq) et ses liens avec certains de ses contemporains, par l’intermédiaire de Jacques Dupin (Joan Miró, Raoul Ubac). Enfin, l'espace consacré aux photographies de l’atelier de l’artiste, dans lequel il exerça pendant plus de quarante ans, offre un aperçu plus intimiste des oeuvres présentées lors de l’exposition.

une aventure moderne

Alberto Giacometti

The definitive monograph of Annette Messager, covering her multifaceted oeuvre from immersive installations to intricate taxidermy, now updated and expanded in collaboration with the artist. Annette Messager’s original use of form and poetic power of communication place her among Europe’s leading contemporary artists. Her work experiments with a wide variety of media, from painting and sculpture to assemblage, photography, film, and embroidery. From her early works exploring fictional autobiography to her commanding, "penetrable" installations, her work is at once intimate and universal, using familiar objects to challenge conventional outlooks.A strong, visual work that provides a clear picture of the artist’s creative development, this edition encompasses her recent work, including the installation Casino at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Including a thirty-four page introductory portfolio, the book is organized thematically and incorporates first hand interviews with the artist and analyses of individual works. Completed by a full exhibition history and extensive bibliography, this is a must-read for anyone interested in current artistic developments in Europe.

Annette Messager (NEW EDITION)

Centre Georges Pompidou

Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou

Musée national d'art moderne-Centre de création industrielle (Paris)

Revendiquant innovation et révolution, l'idée de modernité au XXe siècle est liée à celle d'une destruction positive et féconde : le "big bang" moderne qui a pulvérisé toutes les valeurs établies. Le champ de la création a été le lieu d'une rénovation radicale : destruction des formes par le cubisme, défiguration par l'expressionnisme, subversion des images par le dadaïsme, etc. Affranchis du poids de l'histoire et du carcan de la culture académique, les artistes ont apporté, en opérant un bouleversement profond, un renouvellement total de la perception et de l'interprétation. Cet ouvrage accompagne au plus près un parcours de la collection inédit, conçu à partir de cette thématique fondamentale. Il est articulé autour de huit propositions centrales qui traversent tout le siècle : destruction, construction/déconstruction, primitivismes et archaïsmes, sexe, guerre, subversion, mélancolie et réenchantement. Ce large déploiement, tout à la fois trans-historique - art moderne et art contemporain y sont confrontés à chaque fois - et interdisciplinaire - arts plastiques, architecture, design, photographie, vidéo sont étroitement associés -, apportera une lecture renouvelée des phénomènes culturels et artistiques du XXe siècle, ainsi qu'une compréhension des pulsions et des procédures qui y ont été à l'œuvre.

Catherine Grenier

Books

Your next favorite book is out there