Invited by France's Institut National de L'audiovisuel, the country's chief television archive, to comb their collection for a project, Christian Boltanski, the noted French installation and video artist, became overwhelmed. To make the task manageable and personal, he settled on the idea of compiling footage from news broadcasts from every one of his 60 birthdays, on September 6, since 1944. He wove the clips into a three-screen projection, creating another of his trademark meditations on memory, time, and death. Boltanski's other recent works in video, installation, and photography emphasize the precariousness of our existence, but do so with luminosity and humor, and always involve the audience in the implacable passing of time.
