Post-conceptual couple

Part of a "Constellation Programme" of local and international off-site events launched last autumn, when its "mother institution" known to Parisians as "Beaubourg" closed its doors as well as its iconic caterpillar-like escalators to the public, for a five-year renovation period... the Pompidou Centre in Malaga's current temporary exhibition is a joint retrospective inter-relating the visual obsessions of a cutting-edge couple: Annette Messager and Christian Boltanski - wife and husband, an era-defining pair of French artists, whose recipe for success was to conceive and display their work separately.

The title of that two-person show - AM CB / Annette Messager & Christian Boltanski - reads like a tree-bark or love-lock inscription, and indeed, Annette, widow of Boltanski (1944-2021) and co-exhibitor extraordinaire, "was here", at the November opening, alongside the curator of this unprecedented double tribute, Annalisa Rimmaudo.

"AM" and "CB" were not alone on the A-list of "France's Sweethearts" with art-making in common. However, their claim to fame is that they both made a difference, at once in terms of marital longevity and through their mutual ability to exemplify the epoch they were born into, each in their own way.

Other outstanding 'romantico-arty' duos emblematic of the Parisian art scene in the 1980s and 1990s, range from Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, married for two decades (from 1971 to 1991), and co-authors of the poetic Stravinsky fountain (inaugurated in 1983), a major collaboration featuring 16 colourful kinetic sculptures, which is situated within steps of Beaubourg, on a piazza named after the enigmatic Russian composer, to the fantastic, the amazing... "Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009)".

Sharing the same date of birth (13 June, 1935), the future co-signers of monumental site-specific installations ("wrapping" landmarks in fabric being their trademark) saw the light of day simultaneously in distinct parts of the world (Bulgaria and Morocco, respectively), before meeting and marrying in Paris, in the 1950s.

For three weeks next June, photographer and street artist / "French-style Banksy" JR will present a "40 Years After" reprise / remix of a key "C & J-C" enterprise: a grand re-wrap of Paris's oldest bridge, the Pont-Neuf, inspired by "Mr & Mrs Christo's" original 1985 project. Dubbed "La Caverne" as visitable from inside, the "20-26" must-see is set to beat its predecessor's record: three million visitors.

Born by the sea in 1943 (at Berck-sur-Mer, a seaside resort near Calais, celebrated for its kite festival), Annette Messager was relatively happy-go-lucky compared to her spouse (a year younger), haunted by recurrent previous-generation recollections of nightmarish occurrences, which took place during the Nazi occupation of Paris. (His Jewish father, a doctor, from whom his Catholic mother had divorced in order to protect her children, spent a year and half "in hiding", concealed beneath the floorboards of the family home.)

At once a playful spirit and a notorious cigarette-smoking inspiration-seeker, "Annette-the-Messenger" has always been a trailblazer, anticipating various forms of empowerment in her captivating organic installations, which have often incorporated so-called women's tasks such as embroidery and sewing, as well as ethno-cultural references.

"AM CB" retraces the parallel paths of an artistic twosome equally devoted to the creation of ex-voto-esque images, objects and artifacts, intended to constitute an ongoing scrapbook of their personal and societal concerns past and present. To describe the fruit of their dual creativity in detail would kill the magic, so evident in the exuberant photographic portraits, forming the thread of the catalogue. Go see, with an open mind...!