Park Avenue has never seen so much dirty clothing: a new art installation at the Armory involves a five-story crane randomly picking up and releasing garments from a 25-foot-high tower of used clothes. “No Man’s Land” is the work of the famous French artist, Christian Boltanski. I saw the Parisian version, “Personnes,” at the Grand Palais in February. It was an eerie commentary on the randomness of death, enhanced by the background noise of thousands of human heartbeats.

Christian Boltanski may be one of the most famous and well-paid living artists (his sculptures sell for around $190,000), but he used to be a nervous child who never went to school or even left the house. He would observe the same girl from his apartment window everyday but never said a word to her. Talk about frustrated love.

Now he lives in artistic bliss with another famous French artist, Annette Messager. Boltanski is so happy and well-adjusted in life that an art collector has created a special project called “The Life of C.B.” The artist will get paid $2,500 a month to keep a video camera in his studio until his death. The collector plans to create a 24-hour live feed of the footage at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania. Talk about new trends in reality television.

[Speaking of artists in the studio, check out my new short film of documentary footage showing painter, Owen Tossounian, completing a portrait from start to finish.]

- Haley Hogan

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