Archieves of the Dead Swiss 死んだスイス人の資料　[Archives des Suisses morts]

Born in 1944 into a Jewish family, Boltanski is an artist of our age in the sense that he represents an age that is preceded by the experience of the Holocaust. His works are often accompanied by a tangible sense of death. In the works featuring old clothing, and also in works using photographs which are more directly related to the "Monument" series including this work, the materials presented evoke the past. In Boltanski's works, photographs, reminding us of the absence of the ones they portray，are in the tradition of the vanitas painting presenting the ephemerality of life in allegory．The biscuit tins used in this work are ordinary ones often found in French homes, but when they are stacked up and lighted up, they take on the look of an altar. What is presented here is death in the general sense, which transcends deaths of the individuals but lurks in our day-to-day life.