{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Gift of Patti and Frank Kolodny","caption":"Christian Boltanski (1944–2021; born and died Paris, France), Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to the Chases High School), 1987–88. Photographs, metal boxes, and electric lights; 222 x 290 cm (assembled), 22 × 23 × 12 cm (each box (a-ff)), 60 × 44 cm ((w, uu)), 61 × 51 cm ((tt)), 20.5 × 15 cm ((oo-ss)). Gift of Patti and Frank Kolodny (2004-45 a-vv)","cultureterms":[{"id":2031609,"culture":"French"}],"type":"artobject","dimensionsproposed":"","terms":[{"id":2054896,"term":"installations","aatid":300047896,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2158090,"term":"faces","aatid":null,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2088280,"term":"women","aatid":300025943,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2113430,"term":"altars","aatid":300003725,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2099884,"term":"memory","aatid":300254803,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2094049,"term":"students","aatid":300025909,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2031609,"term":"French","aatid":300111188,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2088270,"term":"men","aatid":300025928,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2071558,"term":"electric lamps (lighting devices)","aatid":300182922,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2170710,"term":"photographic materials","aatid":300127358,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2161775,"term":"metal","aatid":300010900,"termtype":"Materials"}],"geography":[],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"20.50"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"15.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"61.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"51.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"60.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"44.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"22.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"23.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"12.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"222.00"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"290.00"}],"markings":null,"accessionyear":"2004-01-01","newaccession":0,"makers":[{"id":472,"displayname":"Christian Boltanski","displaydate":"1944–2021; born and died Paris, France","datebegin":1944,"dateend":2021,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Christian Boltanski, 1944–2021; born and died Paris, France","displayorder":1}],"datecomputed":1988,"signed":null,"restrictions":"Restricted","classification":"Mixed Media","packages":[{"packageid":206416,"name":"image_descriptions_KG"},{"packageid":206417,"name":"image_descriptions_top250"},{"packageid":83862,"name":"web_loadtest2016-8"},{"packageid":268066,"name":"Web_CA_2025_ModCon"},{"packageid":208348,"name":"Z_Orientation Gallery Render List"},{"packageid":211295,"name":"Gallery_19-CrossCollections"},{"packageid":278831,"name":"10282025-DAY1-ONVIEW"},{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"}],"catalograisonne":null,"classifications":[{"id":2054896,"classification":"installations"}],"exhibitions":[{"exhibitionid":1282,"citation":"In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of the Art Museum (Saturday, February 22, 1997 - Sunday, June 08, 1997)","isvirtual":true,"begindate":"1997-02-22","enddate":"1997-06-08","uri":"https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1282"}],"cultures":[],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2004-45a-vv"],"displaytitle":"Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to the Chases High School)","displayculture":null,"displaymaker":"Christian Boltanski, 1944–2021; born and died Paris, France","captionhtml":"Christian Boltanski (1944–2021; born and died Paris, France), Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to the Chases High School), 1987–88. Photographs, metal boxes, and electric lights; 222 x 290 cm (assembled), 22 × 23 × 12 cm (each box (a-ff)), 60 × 44 cm ((w, uu)), 61 × 51 cm ((tt)), 20.5 × 15 cm ((oo-ss)). Gift of Patti and Frank Kolodny (2004-45 a-vv)","displaydate":"1987–88","medium":"Photographs, metal boxes, and electric lights","media":[{"id":59752,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/STU00072","isprimary":0,"rank":4,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":60029,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2004-45a-vv","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"Bruce White Photography"},{"id":60030,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2004-45a-vv_OBL1","isprimary":0,"rank":2,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"Bruce White Photography"},{"id":60031,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2004-45a-vv_OBL2","isprimary":0,"rank":3,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"Bruce White Photography"}],"displayperiod":null,"extended_content":true,"campuscollections":"false","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2004,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 64 (2005): p. 91-135.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2004,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 64 (2005): p. 91-135., p. 96","date":2005,"id":468,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774838"},{"boilertext":"Bénézit, Dictionary of artists, (Paris: Gründ, 2006).","citation":"Bénézit, Dictionary of artists, (Paris: Gründ, 2006)., Vol. 2: p. 769","date":2006,"id":6172,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/61030041"},{"boilertext":"Reconstitution: Christian Boltanski, (Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1990).","citation":"Reconstitution: Christian Boltanski, (Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1990).","date":1990,"id":6177,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/276720025"},{"boilertext":"J.G. Castro, \"Paris: Christian Boltanski Marian Goodman Gallery\", Sculpture 25, no. 4 (May, 2006): p. 77-78.","citation":"J.G. Castro, \"Paris: Christian Boltanski Marian Goodman Gallery\", Sculpture 25, no. 4 (May, 2006): p. 77-78., p. 77-78","date":2006,"id":6178,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/14039712"},{"boilertext":"David Pagel, \"Christian Boltanski\", Arts magazine 63, no. 3 (Nov., 1988): p. 100.","citation":"David Pagel, \"Christian Boltanski\", Arts magazine 63, no. 3 (Nov., 1988): p. 100., p. 100","date":1988,"id":6185,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/1514378"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 297","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"Jill Guthrie, ed., In celebration: works of art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1997).","citation":"Jill Guthrie, ed., In celebration: works of art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1997)., p. 345; cat. no. 331 (illus.)","date":1997,"id":852,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/231714876"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"Modern and Contemporary Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199321,"term":"European Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199326,"term":"Photography","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1945-present","dateend":1988,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to the Chases High School)","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"© 1988, Christian Boltanski","objectnumber":"2004-45 a-vv","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nMemory, mortality, and trauma, particularly as they pertain to the Holocaust, are central themes in Christian Boltanski’s work, as is the tension between appearance and disappearance, obfuscation and revelation. Over the course of his long career, Boltanski has worked in a variety of media, but he is best known for installations such as Altar to the Chases High School, in which lamps and rusty biscuit tins frame reproductions of class pictures taken in 1931 at a Jewish high school in Vienna. The design deliberately mimics that of a medieval altarpiece, with its candles, reliquaries, and painted portraits. Unlike a traditional memorial, however, the lamps that illuminate the pictures in Altar to the Chases High School also obscure them, effacing the individuals they represent. Deprived of both detail and context, moreover, these ghostly photographs betray little of their historical origins. In this way, the work conveys the universality of suffering as well as the insurmountable challenge of remembering — and representing — harrowing events. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"In this sculptural assemblage, lamps and rusty biscuit tins frame enlarged reproductions of class pictures taken at a Jewish high school in Vienna in 1931, seven years before the Nazi annexation of Austria. Presented without details or context, these ghostly photographs offer no explanation of their origins or the cataclysm of the Holocaust that likely led to their subjects’ deaths. The arrangement deliberately mimics that of a medieval altarpiece, with its candles, reliquaries, and painted portraits.This altar intertwines appearance and disappearance, obfuscation and revelation, the vagaries of memory and the specificity of traumas both personal and collective. Boltanski has commented that art and religion converge in their effort to make sense of things: “the only difference” between them is that “religion gives the answer and art—my art—doesn’t.”","remarks":"CRSS_19_WLA – Day 1 Cataloguing"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"[Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, Illinois]. Patricia Kolodny and Frank Kolodny, Princeton, New Jersey, gift; to Princeton University Art Museum, 2004.","remarks":null}],"datebegin":1987,"sortnumber":"2004 45 a vv","published_date":"2026-03-31 02:33:39.506517","objectid":42505,"dimensions":"assembled: 222 x 290 cm (87 3/8 x 114 3/16 in.)\r\neach box (a-ff): 22 x 23 x 12 cm (8 11/16 x 9 1/16 x 4 3/4 in.)\r\n(w, uu): 60 x 44 cm (23 5/8 x 17 5/16 in.)\r\n(tt): 61 x 51 cm (24 x 20 1/16 in.)\r\n(oo-ss): 20.5 x 15 cm (8 1/16 x 5 7/8 in.)","on_view":true}