The Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo is pleased to announce the opening of its new exhibition dedicated to French artist Christian Boltanski. This presentation has been produced in the framework of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s “Hors‑les‑murs” programme, showcasing previously unseen holdings of the Collection at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice and Beijing, thus carrying out the Fondation’s intent to realize international projects and make them accessible to a broader public.

Boltanski is a leading figure in contemporary art, considered as France’s most influential living artist. Since 1967, he has developed an artistic style that embraces writing, film, sculpture and photography. With a focus on remembrance and time, he works with biographical milestones and references, from both his own life and the lives of unknown or unidentified persons, and combines true and fictional tales in an attempt at “reconstitution”. He follows the twisting paths of individual and collective destinies using personal and impersonal elements of great evocative power – photographs, newspapers, archives, clothes, designing installations with formal and emotional intensity. The theme of memory and its corollary, an obsession with avoiding forgetfulness and oblivion, is central to his vision, as is the ability to invent legends and myths.
After presenting Animitas (2014) and Animitas (Blanc) (2017) at Espace Louis Vuitton Munchen in 2017, the Fondation Louis Vuitton is honoured to show the two last chapters of the Animitas series at Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo, as part of its ongoing “Hors‑les‑murs” programme.

The two films, Animitas (La forêt des murmures) and Animitas (Mères mortes), are part of one of the artist’s most ambitious recent projects. Paying tribute to small roadside altars honouring the dead, Animitas is initially an outdoor installation within expanses of secluded landscapes which consists of 300 Japanese bells on slender stalks, echoing the configuration of the stars on the night of Boltanski’s birth: September 6, 1944. The first version of the installation was set in the most arid desert of Atacama (Chile), repeating the celestial archway as seen in the Southern Hemisphere on that date. The same configuration was later reinterpreted on three other sites: on the island of Teshima in Japan (La forêt des murmures, 2016), on Quebec’s Ile d’Orleans (Blanc, 2017), and near the Dead Sea in Israel (Mères mortes, in the fall of 2017). Doomed to disappear with time, these installations blend Boltanski’s personal history with the stories of the places themselves, and thereby with those of thousands of souls. The video of each installation of Animitas, filmed in a single shot from sunrise to sunset, is presented in conjunction with a grass and flower bed that naturally evolves with the passage of time and people over the course of the exhibition, while the bells’ gentle tinkling evokes, according to the artist himself, “the music of the stars and the voices of the floating souls”.

Anchored in an existential relationship with the world, Boltanski’s oeuvre is a combination of Minimalism and Expressionism. His austere installations speak to the precarious nature of human existence, forgetfulness, loss, the fragility of memory and the passage of time, all in works of universal expression designed to be understood by everyone.

About the Fondation Louis Vuitton
The Fondation Louis Vuitton serves the public interest and is exclusively dedicated to contemporary art and artists, as well as 20th century works to which their inspirations can be traced. The Collection and the exhibitions it organises seek to engage a broad public. The magnificent building created by the Canadian‑American architect Frank Gehry, and already recognized as an emblematic example of the 21st century architecture, constitutes the Fondation’s seminal artistic statement. Since its opening in October 2014, the Fondation has welcomed more than five million visitors from France and around the world.

The Fondation Louis Vuitton commits to engage in international initiatives, both at the Fondation and in partnership with public and private institutions, including other foundations and museums such as the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint‑Petersburg (Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection), the MoMA in New York (Being Modern: MoMA in Paris), and the Courtauld Gallery in London (The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism) among others. The artistic direction also developed a specific “Hors‑les‑murs” programme taking place within the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Beijing, Munich, Venice and Tokyo, which are exclusively devoted to exhibitions of works from the Collection. These exhibitions are open to the public free of charge and promoted through specific cultural communication.