Studio visit interview with Christian Boltanski:
'I began to work as an artist when I began to be an adult, when I understood that my childhood was finished, and was dead. I think we all have somebody who is dead inside of us. A dead child. I remember the Little Christian that is dead inside me. What drives me as an artist is that I think everyone is unique, yet everyone disappears so quickly. I made a large work called The Reserve of Dead Swiss (1990) and all the people in photographs in the work are dead. We hate to see the dead, yet we love them, we appreciate them. Human. That's all we can say. Everyone is unique and important. But I like something Napoleon said when he saw many of his dead soldiers on a battlefield: "Oh, no problem - one night of love in Paris and you can replace everybody."
http://www.tate.org.uk/valueart/value/working/artworks/boltanski.htm
The photographs of anonymous dead people were selected by Boltanski from obituary notices in Swiss newspapers. The lengths of fabric gathered around the shelves are shroud-like and also evoke the curtain of the crematorium. Aside from this suggestion of 'memento mori' the harsh beams that spotlight each face evoke references to interrogation and torture. These aspects together with the sheer scale of death suggested by the title and by the repetitive presentation employed here have led commentators to find references to the holocaust. However by nominating the victims as Swiss, a neutral people, the association is muted and allows for more intimate, personal and wider, historical reflections.
Boltanski is right that people disappear quickly. It is interesting that he creates a piece with the intent of showing faces of the dead swiss children and to reserve them. In the second site they talk a little more about the conclusions drawn from this Idea and I think it just barely hits the point at the end. It seems that the choice of the Swiss is because they are neutral so this is not in any way war related but really just to reserve the dead. Although a lot of Boltanski's work is war related here he strips away all hints of war and presents only the people as they are with a normal everyday death. This is what I am doing with my project. I want to eliminate all ideas of war and horror so that it can be simplified to just the reservation of them, memories, keepsakes, and the way they effect those left behind. Although my research began on ghosts in a literal sense it has turned into a broader definition. The imprint of the dead on those they left behind. Not just their old bedrooms and hair brushes but the memories and the flickers of moments imprinted in people minds of them. This is the ghost they leave of themselves.
Boltanksi quoted Napoleon,
"But I like something Napoleon said when he saw many of his dead soldiers on a battlefield: "Oh, no problem - one night of love in Paris and you can replace everybody."
This idea is not common amongst most when they are presented with this image but since Napoleon has been around it for years he is immune to the reality. At first reading this you would think Boltanski is wrong and ignorant because anyone would know that those men had families and it is sad to see they are so young and dead. But in reality how many people mourn for the billions of people who have died through out all the wars in the world (or trillions). Death happens every second around the world and most people ignore it because if we took it all to heart it would be a tragic community. We are allowed to be immune to it and if you bring it up it becomes a short-lived conversation. This is why it is important to put it the conversation on hold through the art, to create a calm and quiet space where one can have a conversation with the art rather than one with a person.
Boltanksi seems to understand this idea. In one of his self-portraits he titles, "Life is happy, Life is sad". This is where the death conversation can come to a conclusion because the other reality is that although all this death happens there more beauty in life to overpower it. Because for every one person who dies there is a lifetime full of happiness (or the search of) but it is important to keep an equal playing field for both rather than being ignorant to one. This is where society has failed. We have kept death under our beds and we can only look at it on our own time because to talk about it is taboo.
