BOLOGNA, Italy — The artist Christian Boltanski sat on a bench in a Bologna museum facing one of the 20 works he had allocated throughout this city and mused on a favorite theme: mortality.

He offered what he smilingly said was a “very pretentious” thought.

“I hope that when I shall be dead, somebody that I don’t know in Australia is going to be sad for two minutes,” Mr. Boltanski, who is 72, said. “It would be something marvelous because it means you’ve touched people you’ve never seen and that is something incredible.”

The installation before him included a video with dozens of bells on long metal wires set in a blustery snowscape in northern Quebec, the gray sky blurring into the snow so that at times the two were indistinguishable. The suggestion of looming hypothermia was strong. A neon sign next to the installation announced “Arrivée” (“the end”) while another sign at the gallery entrance established “Depart” (“the beginning”).