From 21 de March 2012 al 03 de June del 2012
Relive the experience
The Blind
“I did this work in France and Australia. I don’t know why I asked about beauty. I simply came across a group of blind people on the street, and one of them was saying to his friends, ‘Yesterday I saw a beautiful film.’ It took me two years to finish this work. I was afraid of the element of cruelty implicit in asking a blind person what beauty is. Furthermore, in this work, we again encounter the idea of looking without being looked at. This isn’t an investigation into the idea of beauty. I’m not interested in proving that blind people can see.” (Sophie Calle)
In The Blind, one of her most successful works, Calle collects the testimonies of several people blind from birth according to what they believe beauty to be. Each piece consists of a photograph of the person, alongside another panel with their written testimony, and below it, a photograph of what the person has described as their subjective impression of beauty.
Seeing the Sea
“In 2010, I went to Istanbul, a city surrounded by water. I met people who live there and have never seen the sea. I filmed their first time.” (Sophie Calle)
This work originated from an exhibition Calle curated for the Sabanci Museum as part of the Istanbul Biennial. Titled For the Last and First Time, Sophie focuses her unique perspective on both the “last images” of people with visual impairments and the experiences of Istanbul residents who have never seen the sea. Seeing the Sea invites us to reflect on the different and complex dimensions of sight, a faculty whose existence is rarely considered and often taken for granted. Filmed by Caroline Champetier, a renowned French cinematographer, the first and striking encounters of these people, marginalized and strangers in their own cities, having never visited the sea that surrounds them, are captured in several videos.
The people selected to participate in this project were chosen with the help of the Municipality of Esenler. The group included a large number of immigrants from Eastern Europe and Central Anatolia who, leaving their roots behind in search of a new future, migrated to Istanbul and settled in the outskirts.
Exquisite Pain
Exquisite Pain is a powerful narrative that recounts a journey abroad, the loss of a love, suffering, and its inevitable catharsis. It is the diary of a journey from Paris to Tokyo, passing through on the Russian Trans-Siberian Express, and the story of a failed encounter in room 261 of the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi.
This installation unfolds in three parts: the first consists of an exhibition of 92 photographs and some ephemeral objects that recall each day of Calle’s journey leading up to the breakup. This diary serves as a countdown to the days of rejection and desolation. Each photograph or sealed document is marked with a number indicating the number of days remaining until the moments of unhappiness. The second part is a three-dimensional reconstruction of room 261 of the Imperial Hotel, the site of Calle’s tragic love affair; and the third part constitutes the exorcism. Calle’s own story is juxtaposed with other people’s narratives of heartbreak and lost love.
No Sex Last Night
In his first video project, Calle joins his collaborator/partner Gregory Shepard to create a voyeuristic tour. Armed with video cameras, they traveled across the American West in their convertible Cadillac to produce and document a real-life narrative about their experiences and relationships. In this video, each records a kind of personal diary, presenting entirely different versions of their relationship. With their cameras as tools of mourning, the protagonists chronicle the complex and difficult maps of human relationships, their struggle to reconcile them, sexuality, and desire. The viewer is challenged to confront the possibility of reconsidering the cultural roles imposed by gender, sexuality, power, and tradition. Throughout this process, Calle seeks to redefine, through personal research, the terms and parameters of subject/object, public/private relationships, truth, fiction, and role-playing.