Christian Boltanski - No Man's Land 2010

Last year the Park Avenue Armory had a wonderful installation by Ernesto Neto. This year, the artist Christian Bolatnski has taken over the space with an installation called “No Man’s Land.” With the constant din of heartbeats, low lit biscuit tins, and the piles of clothes lit by neon lights, the viewer steps into an eerie other world. A crane hovers, cherry-picking clothes at random and dropping them back into the large pile in the center of the building. To be honest, it felt a bit like being in someone’s musty basement.

The night of the opening many people said that the work reminded them of  the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.  I too, felt that way, and it is true that Boltanski was deeply influenced by that traumatic event.  He states, however, that this work is not particularly about the Holocaust but all “natural” events that impact humanity.  For Boltanski, clothes symbolize people and those selected by the giant claw is a matter of chance. He sees the claw as the “finger of god”.  Though I see what he was trying to get at, I personally was not able to glean it during my visit.  The beauty of art is that perhaps for someone else, this work will have more resonance and meaning.

Up through June 13th at Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue at 67th Street