“WE, TOO, ARE IN SEARCH OF OUR PARENTS”

BOLTANSKI, Christian. Diese Kinder Suchen Ihre Eltern. München: Gina Kehayoff Verlag, (1994). Octavo, original stiff white paper wrappers, original ivory dust jacket affixed to wrappers as issued, original slipcase. Vintage gelatin silver print, measuring 7 by 9 inches. $1500.

Signed limited first edition, number 70 of only 77 copies signed by Boltanski, featuring 79 pages of black-and-white photographs and vintage gelatin silver print, also signed and numbered by Boltanski on the verso.

In Diese Kinder Suchen Ihre Eltern (These Children Seek Their Parents), French conceptual artist and photographer Christian Boltanski arranges images of 77 children in post-war Germany that were originally displayed on Red Cross posters circulated from 1946-7, typified by the double-page poster reproduction within. An artist whose photos often "deny the individuality of their subjects to make a wider social observation," Boltanski writes that this photobook was an attempt to find these children who "have become part of the post-war history of Germany with all its changes… They are about my own age," he notes, "and their history is similar in some ways to mine, to ours. We, too, are in search of our parents" (Parr & Badger I:291). Signed limited edition of 77 copies out of 2000 printed to accompany the exhibition at Köln's Ludwig Museum in 1994, with vintage gelatin silver print, signed and numbered by Boltanski on the verso.

A fine copy.