French artist Christian Boltanski dies at 76

Christian Boltanski, the French artist, photographer, and filmmaker known for his installations exploring memory, life, and death, died at age 76. Born in Paris to a Ukrainian Jewish father and Corsican mother, he began painting at 13 but abandoned it at 25 to combine photography, writing, and autobiography. His first film, La Vie Impossible de C.B., was made in 1968. In 1972, he presented L'Album de la famille D. at Documenta in Kassel, marking his international debut. He returned to Documenta in 1987 and participated in the Venice Biennale in 1986. In Italy, he created the permanent installation for the victims of the Ustica massacre at the Museo della Memoria in Bologna, and presented the French Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale curated by Jean-Hubert Martin with the exhibition Chance. His later works included Personnes, which traveled from the Grand Palais in Paris to Milan, Tokyo, and New York, and a project in Patagonia involving a large trumpet played by the wind to reproduce whale sounds. Major retrospectives include Christian Boltanski : Faire son temps at the Centre Pompidou (2019–2020). He received an honorary degree in historical sciences from the University of Bologna in 2018. Bologna's mayor Virginio Merola and the MAMbo museum paid tribute, recalling his 1997 exhibition Pentimenti at Villa delle Rose, the permanent work Les Regards dedicated to partisans, and the 2017 project Anime. Di luogo in luogo. Christian Boltanski.