Christian Boltanski's Dance of Death

New artwork from Christian Boltanski can be visited in Guimarães, European Capital of Culture for 2012

French artist Christian Boltanski (b. 1944) recently opened his installation at Guimarães, the European Capital of Culture for 2012. Dance of Death is his new artwork created specifically for a large room at Fábrica ASA, an old factory building converted into a creative space. The curatorship is lead by João Fernandes, art director of Serralves Contemporary Art Museum and the new deputy director of Reina Sofia National Museum, at Madrid. As we enter in the room: in a dark gloomy atmosphere, hundreds of long coats hanging in the exhibition space at different heights. Some of them are moving slowly in a continuous loop, others are just hanged, swinging with the visitors touch or simply by the air flow. Boltanski chose mostly dark coats, the dim light gives us a heavy, sad atmosphere, the smell of old and used accelerate our ideas association process: "Death is present here, we feel disgust and malaise. Empty from bodies, coats are full of memories, ordinary memories of common lives, joys and sorrows. We avoid touching them, as they were dead bodies", says the artist. Mentions that "the coats hanging resemble dead meat hanging in a butcher or slaughterhouse". He’s interested in recovering "the individual history of each coat and each person who bought and used it. Abandoned, they are like forgotten dead bodies now, but still carrying a load of emotions and countless stories, as a spirit". Dance of Death explores the theme of death and memory, a recurring theme in Boltanski creative path. The usage of clothes is also present in his artistic production since late 1980's. Boltanski started drawing the ideas for this art piece during a visit to the site, a former textile factory, on a rainy day. The coats’ movement appear as still in the factory assembly line, precisely as in the system used in laundries. Asks himself what will the coats’ life be after this installation: if they will have another life or have a continuity of its existence and the collection of memories. To this artwork, Boltanski added also a light screen with a counter. The piece represents the seconds he has been living and is changing continuously in real time, "like a heart that is beating and one day will stop". It's a minimalist work but with a heavy meaning making us think of our own existence and the instant when our lives will once cease. "We can say it represents a life, that a life boils down to this", he says wryly. Dance of Death can be visited until September 9th, at Fábrica ASA, at Guimarães.