Christian Boltanski, one of France's top contemporary artists, whose multimedia works probed the meaning of mortality and memory, has died aged 76, a former museum director said.
"He was sick. He was a private man who hid things as long as he could," Bernard Blistene, former director of the Pompidou museum, which hosted an exhibition of Boltanski's work last year, told AFP.
Boltanski, whose death in Paris's Cochin Hospital was reported by Le Monde newspaper, often mixed banal daily objects with photographs, videos and sculpture, while at other times creating monumental installations.
His self-described works of "naive psychoanalysis" include the recorded heartbeats of thousands of people on a remote Japanese island, a moving walkway with pictures of hundreds of children, and stacks of biscuit boxes bearing the names of dead people.
Boltanski made headlines in 2010 when he agreed to provide 24-hour video footage of his studio in Paris for the rest of his life to an Australian collector, in return for regular payments.
The ultimate price paid by the collector, David Walsh, who made his fortune in gambling and owns the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, was to be determined by the amount of time Boltanski lived.
Under the macabre deal, if he lived for more than eight years, Mr Walsh would have paid more than they estimated the work was worth.
"He has assured me that I will die before the eight years is up because he never loses. He's probably right," Boltanski said at the time.
"I don't look after myself very well. But I'm going to try to survive."
Mr Walsh told The New York Times that he hoped Boltanksi would die in his studio.
Mr Blistene called the artist's passing "a major loss".
"Above all, he loved transmission between people by their stories, their memories," he said.
"He will remain one of the biggest storytellers of his time. He was an incredible inventor."
The son of a converted Jewish doctor of Ukrainian origin and a Catholic French mother, Boltanski was born on September 6, 1944, as Europe reeled from the Nazi Holocaust.
During the Second World War German occupation of France, his polio-ridden mother hid his father under the floorboards of their apartment and pretended that the couple had divorced.
Boltanski's childhood was haunted by stories of family friends who had survived the Holocaust, a theme that would later greatly influence his work.
Brought up with the fear of separation, he slept for many years in the same bedroom as his parents, with his two brothers.
Describing himself to France Culture as an "extremely strange ... very peculiar" child, Boltanski left school at the age of 13, unable to express himself.
He found his calling while experimenting with clay and paint, and soon began producing huge canvases.
He held his first exhibition in May 1968 at the age of 23, but after making some 200 works, he abandoned the paintbrush for good and went on to concentrate on new art forms, starting with short films.
In 1968, Boltanski published his first book, detailing memories of his childhood from 1944 to 1950.
His big international breakthrough came in 1971 with the Album of Family D, the first of a series of works that used patchworks made up of photographs of people.
In Inventories, Boltanski described the treasure trove hidden in the bottom drawers of anonymous people.
After the death of his parents in the mid-1980s, his work became darker.
In Personnes in 2010, he presented visitors to the Grand Palais in Paris with great piles of clothes and switched off the heating in the vast building, in a meditation on the Nazi death camps.
An exhibition at the Marian Goodman gallery in Paris in 2015 featured hologram images of himself as a young and old man, with the words "arrival" and "departure" illuminated on the walls, and a clock that counted the number of seconds of his life.
He was married to fellow contemporary artist Annette Messager. The couple decided not to have children.
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
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South Africa squad
: Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wkt), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
Ultra processed foods
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England
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Italy
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Spain
Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid
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The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
How Filipinos in the UAE invest
A recent survey of 10,000 Filipino expatriates in the UAE found that 82 per cent have plans to invest, primarily in property. This is significantly higher than the 2014 poll showing only two out of 10 Filipinos planned to invest.
Fifty-five percent said they plan to invest in property, according to the poll conducted by the New Perspective Media Group, organiser of the Philippine Property and Investment Exhibition. Acquiring a franchised business or starting up a small business was preferred by 25 per cent and 15 per cent said they will invest in mutual funds. The rest said they are keen to invest in insurance (3 per cent) and gold (2 per cent).
Of the 5,500 respondents who preferred property as their primary investment, 54 per cent said they plan to make the purchase within the next year. Manila was the top location, preferred by 53 per cent.
Should late investors consider cryptocurrencies?
Wealth managers recommend late investors to have a balanced portfolio that typically includes traditional assets such as cash, government and corporate bonds, equities, commodities and commercial property.
They do not usually recommend investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies due to the risk and volatility associated with them.
“It has produced eye-watering returns for some, whereas others have lost substantially as this has all depended purely on timing and when the buy-in was. If someone still has about 20 to 25 years until retirement, there isn’t any need to take such risks,” Rupert Connor of Abacus Financial Consultant says.
He adds that if a person is interested in owning a business or growing a property portfolio to increase their retirement income, this can be encouraged provided they keep in mind the overall risk profile of these assets.
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
RESULT
Manchester United 2 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Man United: Sanchez (24' ), Herrera (62')
Spurs: Alli (11')
TICKETS
For tickets for the two-day Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) event, entitled Dubai Invasion 2019, on September 27 and 28 go to www.meraticket.com.
Under 19 Cricket World Cup, Asia Qualifier
Fixtures
Friday, April 12, Malaysia v UAE
Saturday, April 13, UAE v Nepal
Monday, April 15, UAE v Kuwait
Tuesday, April 16, UAE v Singapore
Thursday, April 18, UAE v Oman
UAE squad
Aryan Lakra (captain), Aaron Benjamin, Akasha Mohammed, Alishan Sharafu, Anand Kumar, Ansh Tandon, Ashwanth Valthapa, Karthik Meiyappan, Mohammed Faraazuddin, Rishab Mukherjee, Niel Lobo, Osama Hassan, Vritya Aravind, Wasi Shah
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
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The years Ramadan fell in May
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
