But if Boltanski dies within eight years the gambler will have purchased the work at less than its agreed-upon value, and won. Should Boltanski, who was sixty-five years old, live longer than eight years, Walsh will end up paying more than the work is worth, and will have lost the bet. But the payment was turned into a macabre bet: the agreed fee was to be divided by eight years, and Boltanski was to be paid a monthly stipend, calculated as a proportion of that period, until his death. Walsh agreed to pay Boltanski for the right to film his studio, outside Paris, twenty-four hours a day, and to transmit the images live to Walsh, in Tasmania. There, other than lurid rumors of a fortune made by gambling, little was known about him.
Walsh was a mysterious figure even in his homeland, Tasmania, an island the size of Sri Lanka that lies a hundred and fifty miles south of the Australian mainland. David Walsh first made global headlines in 2009, when he gambled on the life of Christian Boltanski, a French artist whose installations often focus on death.
