CHANCE – CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI

Carriageworks is currently hosting an astounding trio of installations by Christian Boltanski titled Chance. These deceptively simple creations hide a tangle of complexity.

The first, Wheel of Fortune, is an immense scaffolding surrounding a press printing black and white images of babies. The imposing piece overwhelms with its size and startles with its comment on the factory line similarity of humanity. The uniformity is disrupted when a bell sounds and the machinery stops to reveal the intricate uniqueness of a selected face.

Wheel of Fortune is book-ended by Last News From Humans, two towers surmounted by digital tallies of births and deaths around the globe. The unending flow of numbers highlights the inscrutability of existence.

The final piece, Be New, is a roller coaster blender of sliced visages which can be recombined to produce a new whole.

Emotional and intellectual, Chance is a profound reflection on the fragility, individuality and commonality of the human condition. (LR)

Until Mar 23, Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh, free, carriageworks.com.au