I would stalk her. (No! It's an art reference, I'm not creepy!

Sophie Calle is kind of my hero. And by kind of, I mean really actually.
Her photographs are clear and understated and her text is captivating.

I first met Calle through Appointment with Sigmund Freud, where she photographed within the Freud Museum, which is the house in which Sigmund used to live. She used the space and his possessions as starting points leading on to photographs and memories from her own life. the really fascinating thing about much of Calle's work is that her life stories are barely believable. they are all presented as plain fact, and I find myself believing them, but there is certainly a far out nature to events.

"In February 1998, I was invited to create an exhibition entitled
'Appointment' at a house at 20 Maresfield Gardens, London, where Dr. Freud lived
and died. After having a vision of my wedding dress laid across Freud's couch, I
immediately accepted. I chose to display relics of my own life among the
interiors of Sigmund's home." -Sophie Calle  

Every time I research Calle, which I do often, I find a new project of hers to love.
Last time I looked it was her early work, the sleepers.

In this series Calle asked friends, and neighbours, and friends of friends, and strangers to come and sleep in her bed and have their time their recorded. Many of them were people of professions such as bakers that required them to sleep during the day. The sleepers were asked to stay for 8 hours and during that time they were photographed and interviewed, and had their conversations recorded.

In the introduction to 

True Stories: Hasselblad Award 2010

Sophie Calle

Hasselblad Foundation, Steidl: Germany

2010

Calle talks about her entrance into photography. She made The Sleepers after studying a Duane Michals' that was part of her father's collection, saying she wanted to impress him (her father rather than Michals).

Anyhow, on this particular sojourn into Sophie's World (I'm sorry, bad reference, plus I never even finished the book) my new discover is  Room with a View. It is part of the True Stories book, though I think it would benefit from being a larger work  in it's own right.


"Some nights you can't put into words. I spent the night of October 5, 2002, in a room set up for me at the top of the Eiffel Tower. In bed. Between white sheets, listening to the strangers who took turns at my bedside. Tell me a story so I won't fall asleep. Maximum length: 5 minutes. Longer if thrilling. No story, no visit. If your story sends me to sleep, please leave quietly and ask the guard to wake me . . . Hundreds turned up. Some nights you can't describe. I came back down in the early morning. A message was flashing on each pillar: Sophie Calle, end of sleepless night, 7:00 a.m. As if to confirm that I hadn't dreamt it all. I asked for the moon and I got it: I SLEPT AT THE TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER. Since then, I keep an eye out for it, and if I glimpse it along some street, I say hello. Give it a fond look. Up there, 1,014 feet above ground, it's a bit like home." (Calle, 2010, 98)