I am obsessed with the artist Sophie
Calle. I was first exposed to her in an exhibition at Mass MOCA in 1999 and I
have been hungry for more ever since.
That exhibition included photographs and diary entries from a stint
where she pursued a monochromatic diet (i.e. she ate only pink food for a week,
followed by only white food…), photographs and writing from a stint as a maid
in a Paris hotel (primarily of the personal effects she encountered in the
rooms she ‘cleaned’), and photographs and writing collected by a private
investigator who Calle had entreated her mother to hire to follow Calle. Other work I’ve been fascinated by
since then includes a late 1980s phone booth installation in lower Manhattan
where she offered snacks, pillows, dimes, and positive aphorisms for passersby
looking for some TLC and/or connection.
On Friday I visited the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest uptown forher latest exhibition, “Rachel, Monique,” which is inspired by the loss of her
mother. The exhibit presents a variety of elements; photos, audio, diary
entries, and a video: Couldn’t Capture
Death. On this video, you see the last chest expansion, and then, several
minutes later the rituals of letting go: stunned stillness, checking for pulse
and breath, tender kisses on the cheek, ultimately – one version of the
spiritually ineffable.
Ever since I was first exposed to
Calle – I felt a deep artistic kinship with her. We are both insatiably curious
about strangers’ private lives, and especially the clues people’s personal
effects tell us about them. Like
Calle, I prefer an immersive installation experience in my art, rather than a
traditional ‘framing.’ I am also interested in excavating the deepest depths of
my and my collaborators’ personal lives and psyches for public consumption. I am influenced by her playfulness and
sense of humor, as well as her willingness to probe and confront the most
challenging feelings and concepts through art.
Posts
