Sophie Calle introduction by Clement Cheroux 2022

This volume is part of a series published by Thames and Hudson entitled Photofile whose intent is to “bring together the world’s greatest photographers and provide an accessible introduction to their oeuvre. Opening with a brief introduction on the subject and presenting key images from the artist’s body of work, each book captures his or her style and breadth.”  The series was awarded the International Center of Photography’s first annual prize for distinguished photographic books.

I was drawn to this small volume while browsing a bookstore in Oak Park, Illinois two years ago when I was back home for my 60th high school reunion.  Calle had long been an artist of interest to me because of her offbeat conceptual projects.  In the project that initially captured my fascination she had her mother hire a detective to follow her one day in Paris and submit a report on her movements.  Another project captured in this book was one where she contacted the people in an address book she found on the street to learn about the person who owned the book, which she returned to him.

This volume captures much of Calle’s work in 117 photographs. The introduction is written by Clement Cheroux, a French photography historian and the Curator of Photography at MOMA.  His thesis is that Calle’s “entire body of work is infused with this culture of paradox” citing the diads of reality/imagination, automatism/control, presence/absence, hiding/revealing, and playfulness/death. What he refers to as these “fertile oppositions” are captured in photographs of Calle’s projects from 1979 to 2022.

One of these projects, and the one which I believe introduced me to this fascinating artist, was her series of photographs of the empty frames in the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum here in Boston after thieves had stolen priceless paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and others. Accompanying these photographs were excerpts from interviews she conducted with curators, guards, and other staff members.  In another project in the book entitled Suite Venitienne (1979), Calle followed a man she met at a party in Paris to Venice where she disguised herself and followed him around the city, photographing him. Calle’s surveillance of the man, who she identifies only as Henri B., includes black and white photographs accompanied by text.

Calle’s first artistic work was The Sleepers (Les Dormeurs), a project in which she invited passers-by to occupy her bed.  Some were friends, or friends of friends, and some were strangers to her. She served them food and photographed them every hour.

In order to execute her project The Hotel (1981), she was hired as a chambermaid at a hotel in Venice where she was able to explore the writings and objects of the hotel guests.  Insight into her process and its resulting aesthetic can be gained through her account of this project: “I spent one year to find the hotel, I spent three months going through the text and writing it, I spent three months going through the photographs, and I spent one day deciding it would be this size and this frame…it’s the last thought in the process.”

As you can tell, Calle’s conceptual art is not for everyone, but I love it!  It’s weird, offbeat, and wonderful in the execution of her strange ideas.  Lawrence Weiner one of the leading conceptual artists of our time wrote in his Declaration of Intent in 1986 as follows:

1. The artist may construct the piece.

2. The piece may be fabricated.

3. The piece need not be built.

Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.

Calle, whose work has been shown at MOMA, the Pompidou in Paris, the Walker in Minneapolis and other leading museums personifies the first two tenets in this declaration, and this book captures in photographs the instances where she has been successful in ‘building’ the piece.  She’s not to everyone’s taste, but give it a try.