Cash Machine (02-05)

1991–2003, printed 2015
Not on view
In 1988 an American bank invited the French conceptual artist Sophie Calle to create a project, which never came to fruition. In the process, however, she managed to obtain several reels of ATM surveillance footage, which she watched obsessively, scrutinizing the the expressions of the bank clients as they went about their business. Some fifteen years later, she returned to this material, isolating individual frames and printing them as small groups of still photographs. The images offer surreptitious glimpses into individuals’ private relationships to their money and highlight the oddly confessional atmosphere of the ATM. The series beautifully addresses the overarching themes that run throughout Calle’s work: voyeurism, surveillance, and the porous boundary between public and private life

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Cash Machine (02-05)
  • Artist: Sophie Calle (French, born Paris, 1953)
  • Date: 1991–2003, printed 2015
  • Medium: Gelatin silver prints
  • Dimensions: Each Image: 11 3/4 × 15 3/4 in. (29.8 × 40 cm)
    Each Frame: 12 × 16 in. (30.5 × 40.6 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.59a, b
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Sophie Calle 1983
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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