Boltanski at the Grand Palais

The photo shows a fragment of the huge "nave" of the Grand Palais on the Champs Elysées in Paris. In the past several years it has been the site of large installations by well-known artists. The current one (ending Sunday) is Monumenta 2010 -- "Personnes" by Christian Boltanski of France (he was preceded by Richard Serra and Anselm Kiefer).

Boltanski's visionary installation embodies his concern with life and death. Many thousands of clothes (the persons, in a sense) are spread neatly in rectangles on the full length of the floor (as wide as a football field and much longer), and on the enormous heap in the photo. From the crane in the center hangs a big mechanical claw (as in garbage pits) which continually picks up clothes from the top of the mountain, lifts them up and then drops them, and then goes back down to pick up more. There is continuous noise--much of it from the amplified thumping of heartbeats, and it is cold. Thus you're very uncomfortable, as Boltanski intends (my wife Marylee didn't warm up for hours after leaving).

I'll leave it at that--it was a deeply impressive experience.