Sandrine’s Paris

The title is well deserved: this Arts event is Monumental. For three years now, one artist every year is invited to create an Arts installation at the scale of the glass dome of The Grand Palais.

I was happy with this year’s choice, a “tour de force”, your whole being is involved. Boltanski overtook the space and offered a poignant scene under the imposing glass dome. Experiencing the installation in a cold winter night is even more striking.

As you pass a wall made of small rusty containers, a vast field of neatly arranged square sections of clothes lay on the floor. Low neon lights produce a cold glow over the relics. As you walk among the avenues of clothes, the loud beat of pumping hearts invades the space. It’s as if souls have left their corpses, their clothes still resting on the floor.

Dominating the field, a huge pyramid also made of clothes stands in the background. A crane above the pile descends, clutches some pieces, lifts them up and then releases its grip so the clothes fall back on the pile. Its overwhelming presence could only make me think of a blind hand picking people randomly and throwing them back. Not a sweet image, but a powerful stage.

Boltanski works with absence and memory but I’m impressed by his evocative force ; so many pictures come to mind. Mass murder. Ethnic cleansing. Memory and anonymity. Death and life.

Visitors were invited to record their heart beats for a second installation on an island in Japan. I left my heart there to make it beat in Japan for ever…