In Focus Presentation: Christian Boltanski
Christian Boltanski in the process of installing the show Lichtmesz, Kunst-Station at St Peter Church, Cologne in 2001. Photo: Dietman Scheinder
In Focus Presentation:
Christian Boltanski8 - 28 January 2026
Marian Goodman Gallery is pleased to announce an IN FOCUS Presentation of selected works of Christian Boltanski, highlighting historical and iconic works some of which have rarely been shown.
Many of Boltanski’s works are preoccupied with memory, mortality, and destiny—themes that evolve and grow in meaning in light of historical events, both past and present. It is his exploration of these universal themes that has made Boltanski one of the most prominent, impactful French artists internationally.
Le Manteau, 1991
Le Manteau (The Coat), comprised of a black coat that belonged to the artist and surrounded by blue light bulbs, can be interpreted both as a religious or Christ-like image and as a self-portrait of the artist. ‘The coat is linked to my family in Central Europe,’ explains Boltanski, ‘it is the coat of an emigrant, it is Chaplin's costume, it is the image of a certain man, a poor man.’ (Journal, C. Boltanski, A. Rimmaudo). Le Manteau was presented in most of his major solo exhibitions between 2012 and 2021.
With a focus on the presence and absence of the individual as a central motif in his work, Boltanski has incorporated the coat many times, such as within a site-specific installation at the Church of Saint-Eustache in Paris in 1994 or in the immersive piece Prendre la Parole in 2005.
Christian Boltanski's Prendre la parole at Marian Goodman Paris in 2005. Photo: Marc Domage
Exhibition view of Semaine Sainte at Eglise Saint Eustache, Paris in 1994. All rights reserved.
(361.95 x 218.44 x 97.47 cm)
Reserve of Dead Swiss (One’s Not Dead), 1991
The notions of fate and chance in relation to mortality are deeply ingrained in Boltanski's work. The Reserve of Dead Swiss (One’s Not Dead), 1991, belongs to the famous series Les Suisses morts, in which Boltanski used photographs of deceased people taken from obituaries in a Swiss regional newspaper. Amongst this subjective collection of portraits are those of one or more individuals who are living. Boltanski once said: ‘In this flood of images, we recognize everyone and no one; they are random specimens, people who do not know each other, a monument to the dead.’ (Les Suisses Morts, Museum für Moderne Kunst).
In the various installations of Suisses morts, faces are always enlarged and presented in the form of photographic walls or combined with tin boxes arranged in corridors or towers. This particular version was first exhibited at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York in the same year and has rarely been shown since.
Exhibition view of Christian Boltanski's Faire son temps at Centre Pompidou in 2019. Photo: Philippe Migeat
The obituary section of Le Nouvelliste du Valais, a daily regional newspaper in Switzerland, from 1991.
Dernière Seconde (Last Second), 2014
Boltanski reflected extensively on the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of existence. Dernière Seconde (Last Second) is a series of small counters that rapidly count upward, displaying the passage of seconds in real time. Each counter is programmed according to the exact date and time of an individual's birth, functioning as a real-time portrait. One counter recorded the number of seconds Boltanski lived from his birth, stopping at the moment of his death on 14 July 2021. Additional counters in the series can be customized to include the birth details of any individual.
Exhibition view of Christian Boltanski's La salle des pendus at MACS Grand Hornu in 2015. Photo: Ph. De Gobert
each: 9 x 13 3/4 in. (22.8 x 34.9 cm)
Entre-temps, 2003
Self-portraits have been a feature of Boltanski's work since his artistic beginnings, wherein he sought to blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. He also uses several pictures of himself, most notably one from a school photograph. In the series Entre-Temps, the artist presents images of himself at different ages.
In a video version, the images are projected in a continuous loop, showing the artist aging before returning to childhood in an endless cycle. In this rarely displayed version of Entre-Temps, each photograph is accompanied by its date and organized in a minimalist presentation.
Exhibition view of Christian Boltanski's Entre-temps, 2003, part of Christian Boltanski – Lifetime, National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan in 2019. Photo : Kazuo Fukunaga
Après, 2013
The title Après refers to what comes after our death. The use and experimentation with found photographs is a constant theme in Boltanski's work. In the series Après (After), he enlarged and printed photographs on veils, selecting images from his archive of anonymous faces collected over the years, taken from newspapers or sourced at flea markets.
After years of being kept in the artist's studio, this rarely seen work makes its public debut in this presentation.
Inside Christian Boltanski’s studio in Malakoff in 2025. Photo: Marc Domage
Les Fantômes de Varsovie, La Chanteuse, 2002
This image of an unknown singer comes from a group of photographs that Boltanski found in Warsaw, Poland, in 1998. Poland was a place where he frequently exhibited his work and felt a strong personal connection - he once mentioned that he almost considered the portraits of Polish people he used in his work as his ancestors. The blurred images were first released as a portfolio of heliographs before Boltanski transformed some of them into unique works.
Candle holder: 12 5/8 x 12 1/4 x 1 5/8 in. (32 x 31 x 4 cm) (each)
Ombre Bougies (Shadow Candles), 1986
Starting in 1984, Boltanski began creating shadow theaters using small brass figurines that he made by hand. In 1986, for an exhibition organized at the Chapelle de la Salpêtrière in Paris, he created the series Ombres Bougies, in which each figurine stands on a tin rack with a small candle placed on top. The shadow cast by the small silhouette, positioned at eye level and enlarged on the wall, sways subtly in the glow of the flame, evoking a kind of danse macabre. Using a few precarious elements borrowed from the world of childhood, Boltanski offers a metaphor for the fragility of existence.
Exhibition view of Christian Boltanski’s Légèreté des Ombres at Transfo Emmaüs Solidarité in 2024. Photo: Marc Domage
Christian Boltanski (1944-2021), born in Paris near the end of World War II to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, was raised on stories of the Holocaust, resulting in trauma that would continually impact him and his practice. At the age of 12, Boltanski withdrew from his formal education, and, following his family’s advice, he started drawing, later turning to painting and experimental filmmaking. In the 1970s, however, Boltanski began to develop a more conceptual practice by taking found photographs and objects such as rusted tin boxes and lightbulbs and using them as a means to explore the transitory nature of human life. At the turn of the 2000s, Boltanski shifted his exploration toward mythology by creating stories around his immersive works for people to contemplate and remember. Notably, Boltanski was recognized for his work in sculpture for the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale Awards in 2006. He represented France at the Venice Biennial in 2011. His work has been the subject of major exhibitions in numerous countries on every continent, particularly in Europe, East Asia and in South America.
Currently, an exhibition reuniting for the first time Christian Boltanski’s and Annette Messager’s work is presented at Centre Pompidou Málaga in Spain until 6 April 2026. His large installation Ephémères is on view at Fondation Cartier in Paris as part of the inaugural exhibition Exposition Générale.
The Fonds de dotation Christian Boltanski (fdCB), created in 2023, aims to ensure the conservation, diffusion and promotion of the artist’s work among the public and professionals.