Sophie calle photography style
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The temptation of speculation is even more seductive in another of Calle’s projects from the same time, “Suite Vénitienne,” in which she stalked a man she barely knew around Venice, taking pictures of him. The man, called Henri B., is only ever shot from afar, with his back turned—a canvas that is, by virtue of being blank, hers to create. Dressed in a blond wig and a detective’s trenchcoat, Calle visited landmarks that she hoped he might visit: the Piazza San Marco, an old Jewish cemetery. “I have high expectations of him,” she writes.
If projection is a kind of pursuit, Calle has inverted the gendered relationship between risk and fantasy, in which only men can find pleasure in the chase. But the question of what she’s actually chasing remains. Henri B. was convinced that it was him, and refused to let Calle include him in the final product; in the end, he is literally absent, replaced by a model. But projection is a hall of mirrors, and, by insisting that Calle had “stolen” their images, the outraged subjects of her earliest works failed to see that they were purely incidental
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Female Iconoclasts: Sophie Calle
Articles and Features
By Shira Wolfe
“I don’t have the ability to invent. I can invent an idée but I can’t invent a situation. I have to look at it, use it as material.”
Sophie Calle
Who is Sophie Calle?
In our “Female Iconoclasts” series, we celebrate women who are among the most boundary-breaking iconoclasts of our time; women who defy conventions in contemporary art and society in order to pursue their passion and contribute their unique vision to the world. This week’s female iconoclast is Sophie Calle, the French artist known for her provocative, autobiographical work as a conceptual artist, photographer, movie director, and even detective. Blurring the boundaries between the private and the public, between reality and fiction, between art and life, Calle masterfully and unapologetically orchestrates the revelation of reality for herself and other people, while always leaving a good deal up to chance.
Biography of Sophie Calle
Becoming an artist
Sophie Calle, born in 1953, grew up in Paris. She studie
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Sophie Calle
Sophie Calle (French pronunciation:[sɔfikal]; born 9 October 1953) is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Daughter of the contemporary art collector Robert Calle, Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like tendency to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of text of her own writing.
Since 2005, Calle has taught as a professor of film and photography at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She has lectured at the University of California, San Diego in the Visual Arts Department. She has also taught at Mills College in Oakland, California.
Exhibitions of Calle's work took place at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, Paris; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; Palais de
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