With his work L’Homme qui tousse (1969), Christian Boltanski (born in 1944, lives and works in Malakoff) turns the viewer into a voyeur, making him witness to a gruesome scene. Produced with limited means, the film presents a modestly dressed man sitting on the floor of a dilapidated room, his body wracked continuously as he coughs up blood that flows over his chest and legs. A metaphor for the inner struggle that inhabits each of us, the work confronts the viewer with our most troubling feelings. A major and internationally renowned figure in contemporary art, Christian Boltanski places individual as well as collective stories at the heart of his work. Film, photography and installation are the tools he uses in his collecting that has taken on an existential character. His work, like monuments dedicated to memories, either fictional or shared, highlights the traumas of the 20th century.