ART WIKI32,963 on view
MapCollectionArtistsMuseumsExhibitionsJournal
Sign in

ART WIKI

Where the masterpiece hangs, and when they let you in.

Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Getty Villa, Harvard Art Museums, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, J. Paul Getty Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Musée du Louvre, National Gallery of Art, National Museum of Asian Art, National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian), Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Rijksmuseum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, SMK — National Gallery of Denmark, State Hermitage Museum, State Russian Museum, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Tretyakov Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, State Catalogue of the Museum Fund of Russia (274 museums), Europeana (19 museums), Wikidata (6 museums), Paris Musées (12 museums), and Joconde, the French Ministry of Culture's museum database (495 museums). Images belong to their rights holders.

Sections

  • Map
  • Search
  • Collection
  • Masterpieces
  • On view now
  • Artists

More

  • Museums & galleries
  • Exhibitions
  • Journal
  • Where the data comes from
  • Privacy & cookies
HomeMapBrowse
  1. Collection/
  2. Art Institute of Chicago/
  3. Detective
Detective, Christian Boltanski, 1972–73
Boltanski, Christian, portraitBoltanski, ChristianFrench, 1944–2021

Detective

1972–73 · Print

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked
2 days ago
In this state since
Aug 19, 2026
Source
The museum
On the mapMuseum page

About the work

Christian Boltanski is a self-taught French artist who first came to critical notice in the late 1960s through his short, avant-garde films that combined real and fictional evidence of his and other people’s lives. In the 1970s, Boltanski began using photography to explore memory and consciousness, often by creating assemblages of documentary photography removed from its original context. The artist wrote of Detective:

I cut the images from a specialized review of crime stories. The photographs—which are similar to those in our own photo albums—are as if from a play, and the people we see in them are the actors, assassins or victims. But it is impossible to differentiate among them, now that the images have been isolated from their context.

Art Institute of Chicago · CC BY 4.0

Particulars

1972–73 · aged 28
19442021
Accession number
1974.223.1

In the catalog

PrintsPhotomechanical printPost-war art20th centuryFrance

Sources

  • Art Institute of Chicago
  • Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder

More by Boltanski, Christian

All works
Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to Chases High School), Christian Boltanski, 1986

Autel de Lycée Chases (Altar to Chases High School)

1986 · Not on view · National Gallery of Art

Monument to Lycee Chases, Christian Boltanski, 1987–89

Monument to Lycee Chases

1987–89 · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

The Storehouse, Christian Boltanski, 1988

The Storehouse

1988 · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases, Christian Boltanski, 1991 (project begun 1989).

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases

1991 (project begun 1989). · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases, Christian Boltanski, 1991 (project begun 1989).

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases

1991 (project begun 1989). · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases, Christian Boltanski, 1991 (project begun 1989).

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases

1991 (project begun 1989). · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases, Christian Boltanski, 1991 (project begun 1989).

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases

1991 (project begun 1989). · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases, Christian Boltanski, 1991 (project begun 1989).

Untitled from Gymnasium Chases

1991 (project begun 1989). · Not on view · The Museum of Modern Art

Neighbors at Art Institute of Chicago

Museum page
The Bedroom, Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Vincent van Gogh

The Bedroom, 1889

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, Georges Seurat, 1884–86, border added 1888–89

Georges Seurat

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884–86, border added 1888–89

Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte, 1877

Gustave Caillebotte

Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877

Two Sisters (On the Terrace), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881

The Basket of Apples, Paul Cézanne, c. 1893

Paul Cézanne

The Basket of Apples, c. 1893

Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer), Claude Monet, 1890–91

Claude Monet

Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer), 1890–91

American Gothic, Grant Wood, 1930

Grant Wood

American Gothic, 1930

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, 1942

Edward Hopper

Nighthawks, 1942