Gloria K., first sleeper. Anne B., second sleeper.
While obviously indebted to the deadpan photo-text combinations of Conceptualism, Calle's art is as purely French at its core as the novels of Marguerite Duras and the films of Alain Resnais-an intimate exploration of memory, desire, and obsessive longing. The artist's primary method involves a perfectly calibrated interplay between narrative and image, both of which steadily approach their object of desire only to find another blind spot-that which can never be captured through language or representation.
This work is the first segment of Calle's first work, The Sleepers (1979), in which the artist invited twenty-nine friends and acquaintances to sleep in her bed consecutively between April 1 and April 9, during which time she photographed them once an hour and kept notes recording each encounter. All the elements of Calle's art-from the voyeuristic inversion of the private sphere (rituals of the bedroom) and the public (the book or gallery wall) to the use of serial, repetitive structures-are present here in embryonic form.
This work is the first segment of Calle's first work, The Sleepers (1979), in which the artist invited twenty-nine friends and acquaintances to sleep in her bed consecutively between April 1 and April 9, during which time she photographed them once an hour and kept notes recording each encounter. All the elements of Calle's art-from the voyeuristic inversion of the private sphere (rituals of the bedroom) and the public (the book or gallery wall) to the use of serial, repetitive structures-are present here in embryonic form.
Artwork Details
- Title: Gloria K., first sleeper. Anne B., second sleeper.
- Artist: Sophie Calle (French, born Paris, 1953)
- Date: 1979
- Medium: Gelatin silver prints
- Dimensions: 12.6 x 18.4cm (4 15/16 x 7 1/4in.)
Mat: 14 × 17 in. (35.6 × 43.2 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of the artist and Olivier Renaud-Clement, in memory of Gilles Dusein, 2000
- Object Number: 2000.652a–f
- Rights and Reproduction: © Sophie Calle
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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Sophie Calle
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Sophie Calle
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