Sophie Calle.......and Me

On 2nd I went to Whitechapel to see Sophie Calle’s exhibition. I have to confess that before going to the venue I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about Sophie Calle. DH is usually the one making decisions on which exhibitions we should go to, it is his forte; I am the dumb one in this department.

Thing with me is that once I am in an exhibition I could spend hours and hours and hours there and Sophie Calle’s was no exception. We reached Whitechapel at 11 am and left the place at about 4 in the evening; we didn’t have lunch. Now I am no reviewer and this is just my personal take on her work. The piece that I liked a lot (well a lot of pieces) is called Take Care of Yourself. Sophie Calle was dumped by her boyfriend via an email message. This email, Sophie sends to 107 profession women and asks them to interpret the letter via their profession. There was a shooter, a DJ, a bharatnatyam dancer, a mimic, a ballet dancer, a lawyer, an actress etc etc. To say that I was enamoured would be an understatement. She turned something that gave her a lot of grief into a triumph. I mean I have broken off with ex-boyfriends in similar fashion, but nothing has ever prompted me to make these a public knowledge. My feelings and the way I handled them were so private, I internalised them. So to see someone shout out the message without being too mushy or tacky about it was eye opener.  There were other pieces of equal interest too.  One about finding an address book of a stranger and then contacting the friends from the address book to learn about the stranger.

For a non-arty person like me, this turned out to be quite an interesting trip. 

I love it when people talk about art and then they drop names like they have known these artists all their lives.  I, for one, have the memory of an elephant (which by the way means none) and for the life of me can't remember names (even if I have spent hours gawking at their work).  If ever a conversation steers towards a known artist, I have always got to turn to DH and say ...oh you remember that exhibition we went to...whats his name?  By that time it becomes apparent that my interest is relatively new and that I am a freshie in the field.  Oh how I hate it when I come across like that.....

Edit: 30in2005 just reminded me that an Elephant's memory is good. Whats the opposite of an elephant's memory...thats what I have....