Seeing Death as Death: On Memory Making in the Art of Christian Boltanski

Abstract

<p>比起將波東斯基作品中的各種「死亡」具體化地圍繞在納粹大屠殺及其受難者身上，死亡此一主題在這位藝術家的創作裡，更直接關乎的或許是如何面對死亡本身。於是，若總是需要有點什麼東西才能供人以茲悼念，在波東斯基的作品裡面所憑藉的恐怕不再是被悼念者的生平種種與言行事蹟，它甚至毋須一個名字或姓氏。相反的，本文嘗試指出，正因為波東斯基不曾企圖將死亡視為死亡以外的其他之物，在其與死亡有關的每一件作品中，死亡遂不僅成為他緬懷記憶已逝者的起點，並且也是在記憶中唯一被記下來的事物。而根據記憶唯有能在以死亡哀悼死亡之時，方得以創生所開展的論述中軸，本文則將進一步論證，波東斯基如何透過一句簡單的話語自我判死，進而要求作為波東斯基後死者們的觀眾，如同他以其極富個人色彩的祭悼所親自示範的那樣，必得亦將他作品當中的死亡，也化成為自己的記憶。</p> <p> </p><p>The late French artist Christian Boltanski’s works, with their suggestions of countless deaths, were often said to evoke the Holocaust and the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Yet his installations dealt with the theme of death were surprisingly more directly about how do people face death in itself. Therefore, if people always need something to offer their condolences, it is probably no longer via the life stories, words and actions of the dead from Boltanski’s work. Grieving doesn’t even need a first name or a surname. On the contrary, this article attempts to prove that Boltanski does not intend to see death as something else other than death itself. Death does not only become the starting point for his memory of the deceased in each of his works related to the theme of death but also the only thing that is remembered in his memory. According to the core thought of the discourse that memory can only be created while mourning the death as death itself, this article continues to argue that how Boltanski sentenced himself to death through a concise statement and then asked all the after-dead of him must also turn the death in into their own memory and eulogy, just as he demonstrated with his extremely personal manner of mourning in his work.</p> <p> </p>