About The Work
Portrait Chinois de C.B. is a duo of two c-prints in an edition of 50. Each work looks like a photograph culled from a bureaucratic document—a passport, for example. But closer inspection reveals that, rather than depicting a specific person, the images are composed of three strips that have been cut out of photographs of three different people. This is a variation on the game cadavre exquis (“exquisite corpses”), popular among Surrealist artists in France during the early 20th century, wherein three participants each draw a different section of a person that are then put together to improvise a hodgepodge character. By using photographs of real people in a similar fashion, and especially because of the subjects’ somber expressions, Christian Boltanski’s variation on the game achieves uncertain emotional resonance.
About Christian Boltanski
From The Magazine
- Art 101: "It’s The Idea That’s Important": Christian Boltanski Thinks Art Is Like a Musical Score that Anyone Can Play
- Interviews & Features: See Massimiliano Gioni's 50 Favorite Phaidon Books
- Art 101: The World's Most Influential MFA Programs, Part 2
- Art 101: The Art Lovers: Power Couples of the Art World
Photograph
Two c-prints
18.50 x 13.78 in
47.0 x 35.0 cm
This work is numbered.
About The Work
Portrait Chinois de C.B. is a duo of two c-prints in an edition of 50. Each work looks like a photograph culled from a bureaucratic document—a passport, for example. But closer inspection reveals that, rather than depicting a specific person, the images are composed of three strips that have been cut out of photographs of three different people. This is a variation on the game cadavre exquis (“exquisite corpses”), popular among Surrealist artists in France during the early 20th century, wherein three participants each draw a different section of a person that are then put together to improvise a hodgepodge character. By using photographs of real people in a similar fashion, and especially because of the subjects’ somber expressions, Christian Boltanski’s variation on the game achieves uncertain emotional resonance.
About Christian Boltanski
From The Magazine
- Art 101: "It’s The Idea That’s Important": Christian Boltanski Thinks Art Is Like a Musical Score that Anyone Can Play
- Interviews & Features: See Massimiliano Gioni's 50 Favorite Phaidon Books
- Art 101: The World's Most Influential MFA Programs, Part 2
- Art 101: The Art Lovers: Power Couples of the Art World
- The quoted dimensions are for the paper size. The image size is 28 cm x 22 cm.
- Ships in 10 to 14 business days from Germany.
- This work is final sale and not eligible for return.
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