One Of The Few

Faces, illuminated as in shrines, framed, rows of empty (?) frames below - static like television, wanting for resolution suggesting family or at least other faces, groupings connected by black wiring, by death, the finality all walk toward, connected and given life by light. Three bulbs, the trinity, their faces smiling somewhat, sometimes beaming, the room darkened, their smiles warming the air, but a persistent dread remains, their black and white visages in photo frame size, like wall hangings in a home, suggesting family, or the familiar, and the past, or: death, but the static, though faceless, is alive with energy: green, golden, grey - alternating, the energy of their spirits perhaps, the color of their souls, Kirlian recording of a hidden aura - elegant cords like draper, the home again, like curtains, again: death. Finally all must come to death. Every plot ends in death, every narrative a murder. The creation of a memory is the killing of the real, each document (as in photographs) a bloodstain without a body, senseless violence out of context. We, the viewers, are implicated as well. The children cast their light upon us, illuminated our darkened forms, lurking in the shadows to view distantly only to be revealed the closer we attempt to get at the relics of memory. So the final truth is that we belong in those spare frames made of static - there is a place for us to die.

- Minneapolis Art Institute [Christian Boltanski - 'Monuments']