Sophie Calle Overview

French conceptual artist Sophie Calle explores intimate experience with cool detachment. She is known for bringing private lives into public spaces and her projects are often voyeuristic and confessional. In 1979, Calle disguised herself and followed a man she met at... [more]

French conceptual artist Sophie Calle explores intimate experience with cool detachment. She is known for bringing private lives into public spaces and her projects are often voyeuristic and confessional. In 1979, Calle disguised herself and followed a man she met at a Paris party to Venice. She documented her journey in the book 'Suite Venitienne' (published 1980), a scrapbook of sorts that includes diary-style notations and clandestine photographs of the man she stalked. Since then, Calle has pursued a slew of other personally involved projects. In 1996, she and her then-husband made a film about how their relationship weathered a road trip across America called 'No Sex Last Night'; in 2003, she set up a bed on top of the Eiffel tower and invited visitors to tell her bedtime stories; and, in 'Take Care of Yourself,' her work for the 2007 Venice Biennale, Calle asked 100 women to interpret a break-up note her boyfriend had sent her. [show less]