TIME - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed by Christian Boltanski - ONLY SIGNED COPY ONLINE

Boltanski, Christian (Artist); Beil, Ralf & Assmann, Aleida (Contributors)

ISBN 10: 3775718257 / ISBN 13: 9783775718257

Published by Ostfildern-ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006, 2007

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 160 pages. Published in 2006. 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. Seller Inventory # 13836

Bibliographic Details

Title: TIME - Rare Fine Copy of The First Hardcover...

Publisher: Ostfildern-ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2006

Publication Date: 2007

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed by Author

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Christian Boltanski is one of the most important European contemporary artists working today, masterful at staging rooms and situations. His work in photography and installation, among other mediums, evokes primary concerns of human existence like lifespan, identity, body, death and legacy: how will we be remembered? Christian Boltanski documents the artist's first comprehensive solo show in Germany after more than 10 years, which connects existing pieces with new creations in a unique installation transcending time and architecture. This monograph fathoms and examines the singular echo space of Christian Boltanski's art in philosophical, literary and art-historical essays by such well-known authors as Aleida Assmann and Ralf Beil, and is rounded off by an interview with the artist.

About the Author:

Didier Semin is Professor or Art History at the Ecole nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is a regular contributor to Art Press and Beaux Arts Magazine, and his books include Boltanski (1988) and Arte Povera (1992). Tamar Garb is a critic and historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century visual culture and Professor of Art History at University College London. Her books include Sisters of the Brush: Women's Artistic Culture in Late 19th Century France (1994), The Jew in the Text: Modernity and the Construction of Identity (co-edited with Linda Nochlin, 1995) and Bodies of Modernity (1998). Donald Kuspit is Professor of Art History and Philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. His books include The Cult of the Avant Garde Artist (1993), Idiosyncratic Identities: Artists at the End of the Avant-Garde (1996) and The End of Art (2004).