CCC Strozzina | Centro di Cultura Contemporanea a Palazzo Strozzi

Palazzo Strozzi

SOPHIE CALLE

Les Tombes / The Graves (dettaglio), 1990
Stampe alla gelatina d’argento su alluminio
Trittico
180 x 100 cm ognuna
museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien

The triptych Les Tombes displays images of marble graves without any reference to dates, places or names. The only inscriptions are words that describe family connections: “mother,” “father,” “son”. As in other artworks by the artist, photography serves first of all as documentation of an encounter or an action. In this case, it is the discovery of the cemetery in Bolinas, a small town a few kilometres from San Francisco, California. The encounter with this site is transformed into a conceptual reflection on themes such as death, mourning, and family relationships.

Part of a large cycle comprised of different series of polyptychs with a similar subject matter, these three images, one adjacent to another, lead the viewer to interpret them as an abstract family portrait, mournful and poetic at the same time. Sophie Calle encourages a reflection on those relationships that, in their presence or absence, define each person’s identity. Even though anonymous, each tomb in the triptych contains a real body that was once a person and remains alive as a memory and as a site allowing the opportunity to worship that memory by the survivors. Therefore, the cemetery becomes a place for and of the family, a place where to preserve, remember and, paradoxically, live out those relationships that define the identity of each person: to be father of, mother of, child of.

The textual narrative seems to disappear and the value of her artwork shifts to the strong contrast between a single word and an image, an image that is almost eviscerated of its essence. The 1:1 scale, the focus, the use of black and white, and the photographic cut that denies the vision of any other element beyond the tombs, all amplify the abstract effect and lead the viewer towards a conceptual meditation on the concept of mourning. The subject of the cycle is not death, but rather the reflection on the representation of death. Calle works with spectres and absences: the spectres of the interred and the absence of their individuality, but also the presence-absence of the viewer in front of the work. Such spectres relate to the dichotomy between life and death and to the concept of hallucination as the basis for the photographic medium itself, which shows a thing in absence of the thing itself, that which existed but is no longer.

Sophie Calle (1953, Francia; vive e lavora a Malakoff) ha iniziato a lavorare come artista negli anni Settanta e fin dall’inizio della sua attività si è confrontata con diversi linguaggi artistici, tra cui fotografi a, film e video, installazione e performance, sempre mettendo a fuoco un punto di incontro, quando non di coincidenza, tra la sua arte e la sua vita. Il suo debutto coincide con la realizzazione del lavoro The Sleeper (1979) in cui combina immagini e testo. In Italia, Calle ha la sua prima personale nel 1992 presso il Centre Culturel Français di Palermo. Ha ottenuto fama internazionale esponendo per oltre trent’anni in tutto il mondo in mostre personali e collettive. Tra le personali più recenti ricordiamo: nel 2001 Sophie Calle, Public Places – Private Spaces, The Jewish Museum, San Francisco; nel 2003 M’as-tu vue, Centre Pompidou, Parigi (nel 2004 al Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, all’Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublino e alla Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlino); nel 2005 Exquisite Pain, Portland Art Museum, Portland (successivamente alla Paula Cooper Gallery di New York); nel 2008-2009 Où et Quand? Berck/Lourdes, Arndt & Partner, Berlino e Galerie Perrotin, Parigi; No Sex Last Night, Centro Cultural Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro; Earth: Art of Changing World, Royal Academy of Arts, Londra; nel 2010 Sophie Calle: Talking to Strangers, De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg; Louisiana Contemporary: Sophie Calle, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; nel 2011 Room in Crossing the Line, sitespecifi c installation, Lowell Hotel, New York; nel 2012 Historias de pared, Banco de Republica, Bogotá; Moi aussi, Musée du Septennat, Chateau-Chinon; Pour la dernière et pour la première fois, Chapelle Saint-Martin du Méjan, Rencontres Internationales de la photographies, Arles; nel 2013 For the Last and First Time, Hara Museum, Tokyo; Chambre 20, Festival d’Avignon, Hôtel La Mirande, Avignone; Sophie Calle, Last Seen, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Sophie Calle, Absence, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Tra le più recenti collettive: nel 2008 The New Normal, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quarte; Che Fare? Arte Povera, the Historic Years, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz; In Full Bloom, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milano; nel 2010 Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera, Tate Modern, Londra; nel 2011 Body Gesture, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland; Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Zach Feuer Gallery, New York; The Rest, Pepe Cobo y cía, Madrid; nel 2012 Les Feux de l’amour, FRAC Aquitaine, Bordeaux; La plasticité du langage, Fondation Hippocrène, Parigi; Privacy, Schirn Kunsthalle, Francoforte; infi ne nel 2013, 2Q13, Women Artists, Women Collectors, Marcelle Joseph Projects, Lloyds Club, Londra; The Progress of Love, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis. Vincitrice nel 2010 dell’Hasselblad Award, è stata invitata a rappresentare la Francia alla 52ª edizione della Biennale di Venezia nel 2007, presentando il progetto Prenez soin de vous, mentre nel 2012 ha partecipato alla Biennale di Shanghai. Suoi lavori sono presenti in numerose collezioni dei maggiori musei del mondo, tra cui il Centre Pompidou di Parigi, la Tate Gallery di Londra e il Metropolitan Museum of Art di New York.

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