92 Personal Belongings from Queena Wang

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92 personal belongings from Q.W.

I have made one book with 92 pictures of my stuffs, just want to experience the book's development.

《10 張波坦斯基的照片》

《10 張波坦斯基的照片》(10 portraits photographiques de Christian Boltanski, 1946-1964)【下圖 】在標題文字告訴觀者這是一個男孩(藝術家本人)

不同時期(兩歲到二十歲)的照片。但實際上這完全是波坦斯基在一天之內,找 來不同男孩所拍出的虛構作品,只有最後一張真的是藝術家的照片。若仔細觀察 這些照片,便可發現其中的小破綻,拍攝場景過於類似而讓人懷疑人工操作的可 能性,這十張肖像仔細看來都並非同一人,他們彼此間沒有面貌上的相似,髮色 也不太一樣(有一個很明顯的是金髮),一致的只有僵硬的姿態(每個男孩的手 都貼在大腿旁,只有三歲的那一張除外)與夏季的服裝,甚至是標題紀錄的季節 與男孩的衣著不符合,如三歲那張紀錄的拍攝月份為三月。然而,在知道藝術家 的策略前,觀者很難注意到這些細節。

快拍自十九世紀末因其材質改良與操作簡便的機型發明,開始為家庭生活作 即興式的攝影紀錄。約在 1920 年代末,關於攝影的論述已經注意到,人們在觀 照自我的影像時會體會到今昔對照的失落感,藉著當時意識到的這種心理因素, 輕便小相機的問世,便適時創造了一種新的大眾生活需求:抓住當下,留存美好 回憶。1快拍便深入了現代家庭,為人們紀錄美好時刻。

根據約翰.伯格(John Berger)的觀點,「相片本身並無法像記憶那樣可以 保存意義,它們只提供具有可信度和嚴肅性的外觀,卻去掉意義的成分,意義是 經過理解之後的結果。而這樣的運作必須發生在特定的時間裡,而且必須放在那 段時間裡來解釋,我們才能理解那些敘述。」(John Berger, 1992)

在《10 張波坦斯基的照片》中,波坦斯基模擬了家庭相簿中常見的孩童 照。家庭中,父母為子女拍下不同時期的照片,既是一種成長紀錄,亦是對其成 長狀況的觀察。家庭照片裡獨特的時間觀在拍攝的當下暗示了一種對未來的期 許,「這場拍照儀式從一開始便自覺不自覺地將此時此地轉化為期待中的未來影 像,其中的演員融入了一種「巴山夜雨」的時間往返觀,從現今投射於未來角度 以回顧現今的想像,各自且又集體地秘密進行著自我觀照。」4,然而在這十張 照片裡,因為藝術家完全介入與操控的虛構性,使得這種親屬間的關照與注視成 為一種表演,理應擁有歷時與連續性的照片成了拼貼的工具,在此,照片無法擁 有一種「永恆」去抵抗易逝的時間,原本家庭照片保存當下的能力被解散了,童 年的紀錄在藝術家手中成為一種虛有其表的表演,這或許亦顯示了波坦斯基對於 童年的觀點:

早期的作品我嘗試敘說童年,然而我真的童年已經消失了。我經常 假造它以至於我不再有真的記憶。對我而言,我的童年變成普遍的 童年,不是真的。

Lynn Gumpert 曾指出波坦斯基的早期作品可被視為一種由自畫像組成的自傳,但 這些圖像同時暴露也隱藏了波坦斯基,這裡所謂的自畫像並不是指藝術家本人的 肖像,在其他作品裡,我們看到的是法國小孩、奧地利少年、尤太人,以及瑞士 人 , 這 些 匿 名 的 人 物 成 為 他 「 自 我 呈 現 」 的 戲 劇 裡 的 主 角 ( Lynn Gumpert,1994:152),如同《10 張波坦斯基的照片》中那九個我們不知到底是誰 的男孩。我們從無數的他者的臉來認識波坦斯基,但卻延遲了我們真正對他的認 識。那麼,這樣的「自傳」究竟傳達了多少真實性?其中,與其說藝術家要展現 的是其獨特面向與天才,不如說他以別人的照片演出了自己,一個與社會文化脈 絡息息相關的藝術家,而這些圖像亦又反射回觀者自身。

-------这说明艺术家Christian Boltanski的很多作品很可能都会运用同样的方法，虚拟的阐释一些回忆，而不一定是真实的， 其中可能也包括后面的reinvention的一系列作品－－Queena Wang

Christian Boltanski ( Charleston Woman )

Visual Documentation (Primary)

Documentation from the book
(Inventory of objects belonging to a young woman of Charleston):
-The size of the book(Measurement)
-Number of pages
-Details of the publisher(Name, Year, Date, Address)
-Format of the first page



The Introduction Text from the second page



Documenting the total number of objects and number of objects/pictures shown on a page, the size of each pictures

Christian Boltanski ( "Reveal" )

"REVEAL"

Normal

Sad

Happy

In the images above

Im trying to reveal Boltanski's expression in a different way

Trying to see his work in a different angle which might give you another point of view

This inspired me to look at his work from different way and "Reveal" what he intended. 

Christian Boltanski ( Historical/anecdotal documentation )

Christian Boltanski a french artist who was born September 6th 1944. A very strange childhood since the Germans entered Paris and the fact of his father is a Ukrainian Jews.

His relatives are survivors from internment camp, he was taught in a horror way when he was young, a feeling of ubiquitous danger that always haunted him. 

Every artist has the unusual experience of growing up, accompanied by a serious of trauma, by responding to these psychological trauma they called this a Heroic myth.

Heroic myth can often increase significantly of artist work and enhance the understandable  and market visibility. Therefore, art criticism of such drama are dismiss with contempt, that is to be sarcastic. 

Christian Boltanski’s artistic career began when deep down his bones, death is something that cannot be avoid in life. Death and survival is what he had always been working on, the way he want to present his work is something between theatre and installation. From the beginning and an end of his work, emotion comes from time. The quality of emotion comes when some kind of shock or events that has happened and spaces will be create by different sweep of feelings. 

For me, the holocaust from World War II makes Boltanski instinctively thinks fear is indiscriminate with the world, he can’t stand the normal life of school and refused when he was 12.  Today’s Boltanski, had investigate about death or life, finding himself ever more close to the fear that he live for. The work of his way of thinking itself, or even beyond the work itself. “ The only way to resist death, is through inheritance.” Artistic heritage can reverse the meaning of existence by the end of death, time bombs set to lift of death.

Boltanski’s new work entitled “Personnes” means “no one” or “person”, the individual significance of the artist’s long term existence and devoid of exploration. Memory and the work of death is a symbol of “Personnes”, the concept of the absence of the body. He believes that photographs, second-hand clothing and the body is the same that represents, but he can only present the first two, exhibiting the body is immoral. Photographs and the absence of the second-hand clothes are the main objects to summon and to record the body without the real body. To reflect on “Inventory of objects” series, a lot of items had been collected to display like a convict photograph( book from library) 

“Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.” 

John Berger, 1992

The context of how Christian Boltanski photographs are different from others, he was not intended to publicly presented. What is left behind is the cultural codes of that era and the common memory, between 1939 and 1964 popular clothing styles, furniture, decoration and motorcycle model are what we see in Boltanski’s photographs, perhaps its the reconstruction of the history but also the images and memories of that era.