Dear Shaded Viewers,
I’ve been glued to my computer for weeks, finally finished all of my articles and leave for Hyeres tomorrow so today…was my first free day in what feels like months, I called my friend Vincent Gagliostro to see if he wanted to meet for lunch and maybe see some art. He’d already seen the Sophie Calle Prenez soin de vous show at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in the magestic Labrouste room but it was pretty easy to convince him to come back with me and see it again.
The last time I was in that room, I hate to say, was for a Dries Van Noten fashion show more than ten years ago. It was lovely then and was the perfect setting for Sophie’s exhibition that was shown last year at the Venice Biennale. I’ve enjoyed Sophie Calle’s work since I saw her film years ago No Sex Last Night. Calle is a writer, an artist, photographer and filmmaker and she uses her personal experiences as inspiration for her work which spans more than 3 decades. This particular exhibition is based on an e-mail that she received from her lover, telling her that their relationship was over. I think that if she ever ended up in a happy relationship that might be the end of her work… His last words were ‘look after yourself” (prenez soin de vous)…Calle asked 107 women to interpret the letter from a professional viewpoint. “I wanted them to analyse it, give their comments, act it, dance it, sing it. She then asked these women to reply to the letter instead of her. It was what she needed to distance herself from the breakup at her own pace and ‘looking after herself. The show will be up until June 8th and I highly recommend a nice long visit. The way the installation is set up there are different video screens on the reading tables and chairs, they are placed quite far one from the other so that the audio, although quite low, is possible to understand.
One of Fassbinder’s fetish actresses, Ingrid Craven and Jeanne Moreau
When you are finished the exhibition you can pick up a copy of the letter. While I was reading it, Vincent thought that I should have participated in the exhibition so …although Sophie never asked,
Me faking it and Maria de Medeiros.
The letter
all photos taken by Vincent with his iphone.
Later,
Diane
This has nothing to do with art, but did you know about www.surfthechannel.com?
