Chance

Andrew Frost

Christian Boltanki’s work defies easy explanation. Working with photography and sculptural elements ranging from lighting to clothing, Boltanski’s installations are rich with possible readings but their intent remains tantalisingly ambiguous. For Chance, as part of the Carriageworks contribution to the Festival of Sydney, Boltanski has installed a huge lattice of scaffolding that acts as a kind of faux printing press  – like those once used for newspapers – through which moves a long thread of paper carrying hundreds of images of babies faces. At one end of the installation is an LED counting up the number of births at any given moment in the day, while at the other another LED adds up the deaths. Amongst all this is a video screen across which a random selection of parts of faces – some adult, some children – are reconfigured into chance patterns that approximate faces.

The French artist has created these kinds of works for more than 20 years and says of his work that the idea is more important than the materials that go into making them. Yet in Chance, it’s the materials themselves that create the metaphor of a machine of souls. Since the images are of babies, their identities unknown, and the endless movement of faces through the bright silver metal stanchions, the reading seems inescapable. But what is Boltanski saying about this cycle of life and death? Despite the ambiguity, or perhaps because of it, the experience of the work is at once profound and mesmerizing.

Until March 23

Carriageworks, Eveleigh

http://www.carriageworks.com.au/?page=Event&event=Christian-Boltanski-Chance

Pic: Christian Boltanski, Chance, 2014. Installation view.