Christian Boltanski's Memory Images: Remaking French Museums in the Aftermath of '68

Abstract

In France, museums have long functioned not merely as sites for presenting art objects, but also as emblems of national identity and reservoirs of collective memory. Art-world protestors of 1968 rejected these notions, arguing that museums were elitist and disconnected from daily life. Yet after the demonstrations had subsided, the problem of how to re-imagine artistic practices and venues remained, regaining prominence in the early 1970s when planning began for the new national museum of modern art in the Pompidou Centre. This essay considers how the work of Christian Boltanski was promoted as a powerful answer to the 1968 demands for accessible art and museums. It examines what has been often repeated but never systematically explored: that Boltanski's exhibitions of personal materials allowed viewers to respond collectively while seeing their private memories in the work, thereby creating new, democratic kinds of cultural identification. While his memory images came to be seen as democratising the museum, I argue that they questioned the possibility of doing so, suggesting a more critical view of the sites of collective memory. By examining specific exhibitions, this essay recovers Boltanski's contributions and challenges to the project of reinventing French museums in the pivotal, post-1968 period.