Calle's seminal 1979 series of people sleeping in her bed: now in English

In one of Sophie Calle's first artistic experiments, she invited friends, acquaintances and strangers to sleep in her bed. Twenty-seven people agreed, among them a baker, a babysitter, an actor, a journalist, a seamstress, a trumpet player and three painters. Calle photographed them awake and asleep, secretly recording any private conversations once the door closed. She served each a meal, and, if they agreed, she subjected them to a questionnaire that probed their personal predilections, habits and dreams as well as their interpretations of the act of sleeping in her bed: a curiosity, a game, an artwork, or--as Calle intended it--a job. The result, comprising her first exhibition in 1979, was a grid of 198 photographs and short texts.
Unlike the original installation, this artist's book version of The Sleepers contains not only all the photographs and captions but also her engrossing, novellalike narrative, untranslated until now. From the single, liminal mise-en-scène of her bedroom, Calle reports in text and photos, as if in real time, as sleepers arrive, talk, sleep, eat and leave. Their acute and sometimes startling, sometimes endearing particularities merge into something almost like an eight-day-long dream. Many seeds of Calle's subsequent works are embedded in The Sleepers: her exacting and transgressive methods of investigation, her cultivation of intimacy and remove, and her unrelenting curiosity. In this work, as she observes the sleepers, they observe her too--with reciprocal candor. The Sleepers, clothbound and pillow-like, unfolds as it opens, inviting the reader to join the others in Calle's bed.

A career-spanning survey of the adored French artist whose conceptual works explore the tensions between the observed, the reported, the secret and the unsaid

This volume accompanies the eponymous show at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which is the first exhibition in North America to explore the range and depth of artist Sophie Calle's practice across the past five decades. Through examples of major bodies of work as well as lesser-known pieces, the exhibition captures Calle's astute probing into the human condition and reveals ways that her early work anticipated the rise of social media as a space to create and share oneself. The presentation features photography, video, installations and text-based works, highlighting the artist's virtuosic use of different mediums to explore broadly recognizable and emotionally resonant themes. Organized into four thematic sections--The Spy, The Protagonist, The End and The Beginning--the book takes a new approach to some of Calle's most acclaimed works including The Sleepers (1979) and Suite Vénitienne (1980), while also weaving in understudied works including Cash Machine (1991-2003) and Unfinished (2005). The catalog further explores this new examination of Calle's work with original writing by Henriette Huldisch, Eugenie Brinkeman, Aruna D'Souza and Courtenay Finn.
Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally renowned artist whose controversial works often fuse conceptual art and Oulipo-like constraints, investigatory methods and the plundering of autobiography. The Whitechapel Gallery in London organized a retrospective in 2009, and her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Hayward Gallery and Serpentine, London; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. She lives and works in Paris.

A forensic conceptualist's inventory of the ordinary and extraordinary lives in a Venetian hotel

In 1981 Sophie Calle took a job as a chambermaid for the Hotel C in Venice, Italy. Stashing her camera and tape recorder in her mop bucket, she not only cleans and tidies, but sorts through the evidence of the hotel guests' lives. Assigned 12 rooms on the fourth floor, she surveys the state of the guests' bedding, their books, newspapers and postcards, perfumes and cologne, traveling clothes and costumes for Carnival. She methodically photographs the contents of closets and suitcases, examining the detritus in the rubbish bin and the toiletries arranged on the washbasin. She discovers their birth dates and blood types, diary entries, letters from and photographs of lovers and family. She eavesdrops on arguments and love-making. She retrieves a pair of shoes from the wastebasket and takes two chocolates from a neglected box of sweets, while leaving behind stashes of money, pills and jewelry. Her thievery is the eye of the camera, observing the details that were not meant for her, or us, to see.
The Hotel now manifests as a book for the first time in English (it was previously included in the book Double Game). Collaborating with the artist on a new design that features enhanced and larger photographs, and pays specific attention to the beauty of the book as an object, Siglio is releasing its third book authored by Calle, after The Address Book (2012) and Suite Vénitienne (2015).
Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally renowned artist whose controversial works often fuse conceptual art and Oulipo-like constraints, investigatory methods and the plundering of autobiography. The Whitechapel Gallery in London organized a retrospective in 2009, and her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Hayward Gallery and Serpentine, London; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. She lives and works in Paris.

Calle's first artist's book documents her pursuit of one man through the streets of Venice

After following strangers on the streets in Paris for months, photographing them and notating their movements, Sophie Calle ran into a man at an opening whom she had followed earlier that day. During the course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent trip to Venice. I decided to follow him, she writes at the beginning of Suite Vénitienne, her first artist's book and the crucible of her inimitable fusion of investigatory methods, fictional constructs, the plundering of real life and the composition of self. Over the course of almost two weeks in Venice, Calle notates, in time-stamped entries, her surveillance of Henri B., as well as her own emotions as she seeks, finds and follows him through the labyrinthine streets of Venice. Her investigation is both methodical (calling every hotel, visiting the police station) and arbitrary (sometimes following a stranger--a flower delivery boy, for instance--hoping someone might lead her to him). This Siglio reissue is a completely new iteration of Suite Vénitienne (first published in 1988 and long out of print), designed in collaboration with Calle to be the definitive English-language edition. Printed on Japanese paper with a die-cut cover and gilded edges, this beautiful new Siglio edition allows readers to devour this crucial and compelling work.

Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally renowned artist whose controversial works explore the tensions between the observed, the reported, the secret and the unsaid. She has mounted solo shows at major museums around the world and represented France at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Her most recent US exhibition was the acclaimed Rachel, Monique at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan in 2014.

The Address Book, a key and controversial work in Sophie Calle's oeuvre, lies at the epicenter of many layers of reality and fiction. Having found a lost address book on the street in Paris, Calle copied the pages before returning it anonymously to its owner. She then embarked on a search to come to know this stranger by contacting listed individuals--in essence, following him through the map of his acquaintances. Originally published as a serial in the newspaper Lib ration over the course of one month, her incisive written accounts with friends, family and colleagues, juxtaposed with photographs, yield vivid subjective impressions of the address book's owner, Pierre D., while also suggesting ever more complicated stories as information is parsed and withheld by the people she encounters. Collaged through a multitude of details--from the banal to the luminous, this fragile and strangely intimate portrait of Pierre D. is a prism through which to see the desire for, and the elusivity of, knowledge. Upon learning of this work and its publication in the newspaper, Pierre D. expressed his anger, and Calle agreed not to republish the work until after his death. Until then, The Address Book had only been described in English--as the work of the character Maria Turner, whom Paul Auster based on Calle in his novel Leviathan; and in Double Game, Calle's monograph which converses with Auster's novel. This is the first trade publication in English of The Address Book (Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles released a suite of lithographs modeled on the original tabloid pages from Lib ration in an edition of 24). The book has the physical weight and feel of an actual address book with a new design of text and images which allow the story to unfold and be savored by the reader.

A stunning artist's book containing loose photographs hidden between pages of text that tell the story of each image

Words have always been central to the practice of French artist Sophie Calle (born 1953), who is known for her photographic work that often includes panels of text of her own writing. In this project, Calle conceives of the internal thought processes behind her art-making as stories to be told. It is with these stories--alongside the external stories of the moments preceding a click of a camera shutter--that Calle opens Because. The volume chronicles her reasons behind capturing particular moments in time, but the corresponding photos themselves are revealed only later, hidden in the interstices of the Japanese binding. In this process, Calle reverses the relationship of natural primacy between an image and the words that accompany it, instead calling our attention to the influence that the latter may have on our perception of a photograph.
The new revised edition of this classic artist's book contains 39 loose photographs inserted between the pages, alongside text and other imagery by Calle. A beautiful object in its own right, it features Japanese binding and an iridescent orange cloth cover.

The latest edition of Sophie Calle's classic artist's book features three new tales

First published in 1994 and regularly reissued and expanded since, this new edition of True Stories returns with three new stories. Calle's projects have frequently drawn on episodes from her own life, but this book--part visual memoir, part meditation on the resonances of photographs and belongings--is as close as she has come to producing an autobiography, albeit one highly poetical and fragmentary, as is characteristic of her work. The tales--never longer than a page--are by turns lighthearted, humorous, serious, dramatic or cruel. Each is accompanied by an image; each offers a fragment of life. Calle herself is the author, narrator and protagonist of her stories and photography. Her words are somber, chosen precisely and carefully. She offers up her own memories--childhood, marriage, sex and death--with brilliant humor, insight and pleasure. By turns serious, hilarious, dramatic or cruel, these real-life stories represent a form of work in progress recounting fragments of her life.
Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally renowned artist whose controversial works often fuse conceptual art and Oulipo-like constraints, investigatory methods and the plundering of autobiography. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Hayward Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. She lives and works in Paris.

One hundred and seven women respond to Sophie Calle's breakup email through the lens of their respective professions

In this remarkable artist's book, French conceptual artist/provocateur Sophie Calle presents 107 outside interpretations of a breakup e-mail she received from her lover the day he ended their affair. Featuring a stamped pink metallic cover, multiple paper changes, special bound-in booklets, bright green envelopes containing DVDs and even Braille endpapers, it is a deeply poignant investigation of love and loss, published to coincide with the 2007 Venice Biennale--where Calle served as that fair's French representative. All of the interpreters of Calle's breakup letter were women, and each was asked to analyze the document according to her profession--so that a writer comments on its style, a justice issues judgment, a lawyer defends Calle's ex-lover, a psychoanalyst studies his psychology, a mediator tries to find a path towards reconciliation, a proofreader provides a literal edit of the text, etc. In addition, Calle asked a variety of performers, including Nathalie Dessay, Laurie Anderson and Carla Bruni, among others, to act the letter out. She filmed the singers and actresses and photographed the other contributors, so that each printed interpretation stands alongside at least one riveting image of its author, and some are also accompanied by digital documentation. The result is a fascinating study and a deeply moving experience--as well as an artwork in its own right. Already a collector's item, this is a universal document of how it feels to grieve for love.

The haunting story of Sophie Calle's mother, told through diary excerpts and family photographs

She was called successively Rachel, Monique, Szyndler, Calle, Pagliero, Gonthier, Sindler, reads the first lines of Sophie Calle: Rachel Monique, embroidered on the cover. My mother liked people to talk about her. Her life did not appear in my work, and that annoyed her. When I set up my camera at the bottom of the bed in which she lay dying--fearing that she would pass away in my absence, whereas I wanted to be present and hear her last words--she exclaimed, 'Finally.'

Sophie Calle: Rachel Monique tells the story of Monique Szyndler, Sophie Calle's mother who died in 2007, through diary excerpts and photographs selected by the artist from family albums. Described as haunting and a mystery novel that tirelessly searches for a missing person, the Rachel Monique project honors a daughter's complicated relationship with her mother and the artist's deeply felt grief.

This volume, presenting Calle's installation of Rachel Monique at the Palais de Tokyo, was designed in close collaboration with the artist. The cover text is embroidered to create a precious object, and all of the texts relating to the installation are beautifully embossed. Sophie Calle: Rachel Monique is a highly personal and moving book, intimate and universal in its expressions of mourning and memory.

Forty years after her original exploration, Sophie Calle returns during lockdown to an abandoned Hôtel du Palais d'Orsay

Between 1978 and 1981, Sophie Calle went on a clandestine exploration of the then abandoned Hôtel du Palais d'Orsay. She selected room 501 as her home and without any preestablished method, set about photographing the abandoned hotel over five years. As she explored, she picked up items she found: customer reception cards, old telephones, diaries, messages addressed to a certain Oddo and more. Now, more than 40 years later, room 501 has disappeared and an elevator has taken its place. At the invitation of Donatien Grau, the Musée d'Orsay curator, Calle returned, equipped with a flashlight, to explore the site again during the lockdown period. She hunted down the ghosts of the Palais d'Orsay, now connected to the present by the visitors that had also deserted the museum. The work reconstructs the artist's archive of photography, letters, invoices and other daily items which bring a forgotten past back to life. To provide commentary on her discoveries, Sophie Calle enlisted the award-winning French archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoule, who writes a series of texts combining fact and fiction. All of this evidence has been assembled to create an art object that resembles an investigation notebook.
Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally renowned artist whose controversial works explore the tensions between the observed, the reported, the secret and the unsaid. She has mounted solo shows at major museums around the world and represented France at the Venice Biennale in 2007. She lives and works in Paris.

Flecked with simulated water and mold stains, Calle's newest artist's book resurrects her storm-damaged artworks that hover between preservation and decay

While Sophie Calle (born 1953) was preparing for her exhibition at the Musée Picasso in Paris, a storm hit her home and caused severe mold and water damage to many artworks, including photographs from her series Les Aveugles (The Blind). Calle was inspired by an idea by artist Roland Topor, in which he buried an old sweater that he could neither give away nor throw away. Thus, her subsequent exhibition and its corresponding artist's book contend with art that fades with the passage of time.
To accompany the damaged images from Les Aveugles, reproduced alongside spatters of rot and stain, Calle chose to feature other rain-damaged artworks that, curiously, all spoke of death or loss: bouquets of dried flowers; photographs of graves; paintings of her mother's last word. Atop this moribund arrangement she adds things from her life, such as articles of clothing, that she cannot bring herself to part with. Inserted within the pages are 15 color images of the exhibition display, which the reader can add to any page of the book, whether indicated by the picture-frame-printed corners or otherwise.

For Voir la mer, Sophie Calle invited inhabitants of Istanbul, who often originated from central Turkey, to see the sea for the first time. I took 15 people of all ages, from kids to one man in his 80s ... once we were safely by the sea, I instructed them to take away their hands and look at it. Then, when they were ready--for some it was five minutes and for others 15--they had to turn to me and let me look at those eyes that had just seen the sea. The project was eventually composed of 14 five-minute videos, made for Calle by Caroline Champetier. Each person is filmed from behind, eventually turning to face the camera, revealing the emotions the experience has evoked. This charming catalogue features Calle's evocative photographs of these subjects.