Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is a visual artist, photographer, writer, and director who lives in Malakoff, France. She was born in 1953 in Paris. While she grew up, her family's friends were artists such as Martial Raysse, Arman, or Christian Boltanski. 

She traveled for seven years before returning to Paris, where she decided to discover the city through other people. She started following people in the street, and once followed a man to Venice. On one occasion, a friend pointed out the warmth of the sheets that she felt when she lay in bed beside her. That is how she got the idea to invite people to stay in her bed 24 hours a day, taking turns in order to occupy it for eight days. This experiment drew the attention of the art critic Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, the husband of one of the women who took part in her project; this is how her projects became works of art.

Her work focuses on intimacy. Being herself very solitary, she is interested in the rise of individualism that sometimes takes disturbing shapes. She is increasingly attracted by dangerous and perverse situations, in preset scenarios. Her works deal with the self and play (“je" and “jeu" in French), where through play she thinks of different scenarios for the "self", thus raising the question of identity in her “autofictions". Always setting rules for these games, she also manages to control seduction and love, two elements that play a central role in her work. Her fantasies materialize and the experiences of her daily life are part of the games she invents.

Art has a therapeutic role for her as she brings into her work her own pain, which she sometimes compares with the testimonials of other people. She defines her art as "situation art" in which choices are confronted, creating tension.

Sophie Calle makes art that is narrative in order to bring her ideas to life, and her body of work is built gradually from her different pieces, over time. She uses various modes of expression: storytelling, anecdote, remake, self-portrait, confidences... She also varies the media and can use images, speech, text...

Sophie Calle's work has been exhibited in some of the most important museums of the world, such as Centre Georges Pompidou or the MoMA in New York, but also at the Venice Biennale in 2007.