Sophie Calle
Sophie Calle lives on the borders between art and life in her search for identity. Her art is evidence based, recorded in print, film and photograph. This photograph is from her 'Striptease' diaries and shows her image after having been attacked. This was her last night as a stripper.
Born in Paris in 1953 and now living in Switzerland where she has been professor of film at the European Graduate School since 2005. She is a conceptual artist whose explorations of identity have lead to major exhibitions at The Hermitage
St Petersburg, The Paul Cooper Gallery New York, Des Beaux-Arts Brussels, White Chapel Gallery London, Guggenhein Bilboa and the French entry at the Venice Biennale 2007. In 2010 she won the Hasselblad Award for major achievement in the field of art photography.
Calle explores emerging identity through powerful narrative. She begins with an absence of self, then builds evidence to support the idea that an identity existed. She begins by presenting a proposal to herself with a set of rules for her to follow, rituals to be obeyed for a life to be lived. Then she lives the life. There is no initial desire or message. The purpose is to create initiatives and emotions which did not exist before the proposal.
It all began with a realisation about her own character; that she, like most women of her generation and women before and since , spent their time waiting. They wait for something to happen to kick start their lives...a permission to live outside of the waiting. She decided to make something happen and so began her experiments with voyeurism and stalking.
She stalked and photographed a man she saw on the street and kept meticulous diaries of her imagined relationship with this man. She then reversed the rules and asked her mother to hire a private detective to follow her and take notes of the mundane minutia of her actions. Watching and being watched gave her a sense of power that she had not experienced before. It invigorated her and her art continued in this vein for nearly twenty years but eventually the lack of collaboration and the solitary, painful nature of her concept brought about a change in proposal.
So far she had created books and photographs in which she recorded actions and evidence of existences where she was an on-looker, now she wanted to be the heroine, and so she bombarded the American writer Paul Auster with requests to be immortalised in one of his novels. When he refused she asked him to create a set of rules for her to follow to prove that she was sincere, that her search for identity was not trite, not a gimmick. Eventually this lead to the collaboration 'Double Game' a work in three parts. It begins with an extract from Auster's novel 'Leviathon' where the main character 'Maria' is a New York artist based on Sophie Calle. The middle section is Double Game where Calle acts out this fictive life in reality, keeping records to authenticate the experience. The final section of the book is a record of Auster's response to her original request...
" invent a character which I can resemble".
This document became 'The Gotham Handbook 1992' where he sets out a series of 'Personal Instructions For SC on How to Improve Life in New York City (Because she asked...)'
She was to "cultivate a spot", hand out cigarettes to the homeless, smile and talk to strangers, provide refreshments, make somewhere more beautiful. Never one to be obvious she chose a public telephone booth; painted it green, set up chairs, established a noticeboard and comments sheet, fresh flowers, cigarettes, food and drink. He pushed her from the passive and she took the challenge beyond his expectation. The handbook ends with photographs of the telephone company throwing her efforts into a trash can: a metaphor for what Sophie Calle is forever trying to record, the ulitimate ...
'I WAS HERE !'
St Petersburg, The Paul Cooper Gallery New York, Des Beaux-Arts Brussels, White Chapel Gallery London, Guggenhein Bilboa and the French entry at the Venice Biennale 2007. In 2010 she won the Hasselblad Award for major achievement in the field of art photography.
Calle explores emerging identity through powerful narrative. She begins with an absence of self, then builds evidence to support the idea that an identity existed. She begins by presenting a proposal to herself with a set of rules for her to follow, rituals to be obeyed for a life to be lived. Then she lives the life. There is no initial desire or message. The purpose is to create initiatives and emotions which did not exist before the proposal.
It all began with a realisation about her own character; that she, like most women of her generation and women before and since , spent their time waiting. They wait for something to happen to kick start their lives...a permission to live outside of the waiting. She decided to make something happen and so began her experiments with voyeurism and stalking.
She stalked and photographed a man she saw on the street and kept meticulous diaries of her imagined relationship with this man. She then reversed the rules and asked her mother to hire a private detective to follow her and take notes of the mundane minutia of her actions. Watching and being watched gave her a sense of power that she had not experienced before. It invigorated her and her art continued in this vein for nearly twenty years but eventually the lack of collaboration and the solitary, painful nature of her concept brought about a change in proposal.
So far she had created books and photographs in which she recorded actions and evidence of existences where she was an on-looker, now she wanted to be the heroine, and so she bombarded the American writer Paul Auster with requests to be immortalised in one of his novels. When he refused she asked him to create a set of rules for her to follow to prove that she was sincere, that her search for identity was not trite, not a gimmick. Eventually this lead to the collaboration 'Double Game' a work in three parts. It begins with an extract from Auster's novel 'Leviathon' where the main character 'Maria' is a New York artist based on Sophie Calle. The middle section is Double Game where Calle acts out this fictive life in reality, keeping records to authenticate the experience. The final section of the book is a record of Auster's response to her original request...
" invent a character which I can resemble".
This document became 'The Gotham Handbook 1992' where he sets out a series of 'Personal Instructions For SC on How to Improve Life in New York City (Because she asked...)'
She was to "cultivate a spot", hand out cigarettes to the homeless, smile and talk to strangers, provide refreshments, make somewhere more beautiful. Never one to be obvious she chose a public telephone booth; painted it green, set up chairs, established a noticeboard and comments sheet, fresh flowers, cigarettes, food and drink. He pushed her from the passive and she took the challenge beyond his expectation. The handbook ends with photographs of the telephone company throwing her efforts into a trash can: a metaphor for what Sophie Calle is forever trying to record, the ulitimate ...
'I WAS HERE !'
After Double Game Sophie's art changed. The minute records stayed the same...the art of evidence...but she was no longer detached, no longer watching others. Now her identity was front stage and up for painful close examination. She becomes an everywoman showing the importance of the significant happenings that women go through; the break up of a serious relationship in the photographic diary 'Countdown to Unhappiness: Exquisite Pain'2003' , failed marriage in the film
'No Sex Last Night'1996, and the indignity of 'break up by email' in her Biennale entry 'Take Care of Yourself '2007. These happenings are mundane because they are universal, yet their common place nature is evidence of existence. It actually transcends gender. No longer is she waiting for impetus, she actively seeks meaning but with all human interaction success depends on a mutuality which can still allude and defeat her.
"She uses photography in unique ways - no one else works with photography/text in this outstandingly original way - and she is a constant source of inspiration to younger generations of conceptually working artists" Hassellbad Foundation 2011
'No Sex Last Night'1996, and the indignity of 'break up by email' in her Biennale entry 'Take Care of Yourself '2007. These happenings are mundane because they are universal, yet their common place nature is evidence of existence. It actually transcends gender. No longer is she waiting for impetus, she actively seeks meaning but with all human interaction success depends on a mutuality which can still allude and defeat her.
"She uses photography in unique ways - no one else works with photography/text in this outstandingly original way - and she is a constant source of inspiration to younger generations of conceptually working artists" Hassellbad Foundation 2011