크리스티안 볼탕스키(Christian Boltanski)의 사진 기반 작업에 나타난 홀로코스트의 기억

Abstract

This is a study of Christian Boltanski's photo-based works addressing the Holocaust. In these works, Boltanski treats the Holocaust not as a one-off historical event but as a universal problem of humanity that could be repeated at any time. Album de la famille D. and Sans soucis show the ritualization of private family photos, as mentioned by Bourdieu. The beautiful imagined images, forged while ignoring the dark circumstances of Nazi rule, show a collective oblivion that prompt the viewer to contemplate the normality of evil. Boltanski, like Barthes, regarded the nature of photos as death or objectification. By changing these photos through reworking, he brought this nature to the fore while attempting to reveal the truth of death by breaking down the imagined beauty of the photos. In his various installation works that use reworked photos, Boltanski used serial geometric arrangements and desk lamps as industrial products, and the arbitrary changeability of photos, to express the objectification of people in fascist society through cataloguing and numbering, and through industrialized genocide. Meanwhile, the use of reliquary-like boxes and compositions that emphasize a central axis resembling that of an altar, and the use of soft electric lighting around the photos, evoke a religious sense of sacredness and transcendence, expressing condolences for the victims. Through these works, Boltanski thus raises the questions of the latent evil of humanity and human objectification as the tragic result of instrumental reason, providing a chance for deep insight into the Shoah as a historical event.