Ghosts, Sophie Calle, 2013

This volume accompanied a show by Calle at the Gardner based on the paintings and objects stolen from the museum in 1990.  Calle extended the theme of the ‘missing’ or ghost object by including sections on paintings ‘missing’ due to being on loan from the Musee d’Art Moderne in Paris and MOMA in NYC, being destroyed by vandalism at a museum in Lausanne, and one having been stolen from a Great House in England.  In each case, Calle records the memories, observations, and thoughts of the staff (guards, curators, etc) who had daily been in the presence of these works, these Ghosts, before they disappeared.  A brilliant play on memory, art, temporality, beauty and meaning.