One of the artists I most revere is Christian Boltanski, who deals with those people that are forgotten. He is a Frenchman born of Ukrainian Jewish extraction, from his father's side and his mother from Corsica. I remember seeing an exhibition he did some years ago in London with faces of Jews who had died in the camps. Today he has taken on the Grand Palais, showing us in real terms the clothes and the business of them at the camps. Rows and rows of colourful clothes take on
a Spielberg feel. You are haunted and wonder what will happen next. A huge mountain of clothes and a crane is to the left, making you think deeper. And you do. To the right there are rows of boxes with numbers on them, rusting. This subject is never overdone, the effect is cumulative, and you are further haunted. Go and see this show at dusk, it is eerie.
The Grand Palais has a new artistic advisor, my good friend Jerome Neutres, with whom I have done a book on Indian artists. Charming, brilliant and energetic, he will take Paris by storm. Good luck, mon ami.
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