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RESEARCH POINT: SOPHIE CALLE “Take care of yourself”
Sophie Calle was born in Paris, France on 9th October 1953 is a writer, photographer and artist of the unexpected (Jefferies, 2007)
For her inspiration ‘Take Care of Yourself’, Calle used an email from her ex-boyfriend, in which he dumps her, and shared the contents with 107 women to prompt their professional responses. In her video interview with The Tate (Tate-2008) she talks about and shows how she photographed the women reading the quite lengthy email, and accompanied these images with images of the text, plain and marked-up, in the form of a crossword, sung about and performed by an actress, additionally she included a video in her exhibitions – all of these act as relay effect captions.
Inspired by rejection, “Take care of yourself” can be seen as a form of revenge. However, she has done worse things over her career as an artist, and it does seem a way of processing the rejection which was received in such a formal way – presenting it Relay style adds interest to this engaging body of work and allow it to accessible to its audience.
Relay style is a recurrent theme for Calle a further example is The Hotel, Room 47, in which she worked as a chambermaid to get into hotel rooms and document in pictures and writing what she found.
Calle – take care of yourself
References
YouTube. (2008). Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself | TateShots. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9E4dA0EGaM [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].
Jeffries, S. (2007). Sophie Calle: stalker, stripper, sleeper, spy. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/sep/23/sophie-calle [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].
En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Sophie Calle. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Calle [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].
Paulacoopergallery.com. (2009). Sophie Calle – Take Care of Yourself | Paula Cooper Gallery. [online] Available at: https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/sophie-calle-take-care-of-yourself/installation-views [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].
Tate. (n.d.). ‘The Hotel, Room 47’, Sophie Calle, 1981 | Tate. [online] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/calle-the-hotel-room-47-p78300 [Accessed 22 Jul. 2018].