Textes de salles "A toi de faire, ma mignonne" - 1er étage

With closed eyes
Picasso told me he’d seen an old, half-blind painter in Avignon, in the square of the Palais des Papes, painting the castle. His wife, standing next to him, was looking at the castle through binoculars and describing it to him. He painted based on his wife’s description. Picasso often said that painting is a blind man’s job. He paints not what he sees, but how he feels about it, what he tells himself about what he has seen. - Jean Cocteau

Blind Colour

I asked blind people what they perceived, and compared their descriptions with artists’ texts on monochrome

The Blind

I met people who were born blind. Who had never been able to see. I asked them what their image of beauty was.

Shortly before hanging this exhibition, a storm caused damage to my storage unit and the water seeped into The Blind series. Only their portraits were spared. In a way, this mould is fitting for a project that began on the anniversary of Picasso’s death and ends by evoking my own. The restorers came to have a look and decided that it would be best to destroy the works to avoid any risk of contamination. So, as a matter of urgency, I went looking for replacement Blind works. Having planned twelve, I found only three. I inevitably thought of Topor’s text reproduced in my catalogue:

I bought a plot of land in Marne-la-Vallée, to bury my old jumper with a Jacquard pattern; I couldn’t bring myself to throw it in the bin. It was so full of holes, moth-eaten all over, stained with oil paint, that I wouldn’t have dared give it to a human being, not even someone needy. There was no question of making a rag out of it either. I decided to bury it . . . Next Sunday, I’ll bury the old pair of shoes that I bought in New York . . . There’s also a teapot that I was very fond of and that I insist on keeping even though the spout and handle are broken . . .

The Blind have been too much a part of my life to end theirs on the dump. YOUR TURN, DARLING . . . is about ghostly presence, concealment and invisible paintings. So I logically chose the solution of exhibiting absence and, later, burying the works ceremoniously, like Topor.

The Blind. At Home, 1989
My place is beautiful. I did everything by myself. I chose the lamps, the carpets, the paintings, the objects, the mirrors, the plants. I thought out the arrangement of the furniture. I wanted a blue ceiling in my room: it's more intimate, warmer. I matched it with the carpet. The colors were the only thing I asked advice about. I didn't want it to be in bad taste. 

The Blind, 1986
Green is beautiful. Because every time I like something, i am told that it is green. The grass is green, the trees, the leaves, nature... I like to dress in green.

The Blind. White, 1986

White should be the color of purity. They say white is beautiful. So, I think it’s beautiful. But it wouldn’t be beautiful, it would be the same.

The Blind, 1986
Green is beautiful. Because every time I like something, i am told that it is green. The grass is green, the trees, the leaves, nature... I like to dress in green.

Voir la mer
In Istanbul, a city surrounded by the sea, I met people who had never seen it. I filmed their first time.

Director of photography: Caroline Champetier

Aveugle au lever de soleil, 2010
It was March 14, 2004,at about seven o’clock. After my morning prayer I went out onto the balcony of my hospital room to watch the sun rise. I wondered if it would ever rise for me ever again. I knew just how critical the operation was because I’d overheard a my parents talking with the doctor: an 85% chance of not making it, with the remaining 15% divided between paralysis, impaired mental functions, loss of eyesight and a complete cure. I put blind in second spot. I looked out over the sea, behind the buildings, the sun in the clouds, the transition from darkness to light. As if for the last time.

Aveugle au minibus, 2010
The right eye was an accident, a door handle, when I was ten. The left one was a medical error. I had glaucoma. On July 21, 1981 I went to see the doctor. Just for a check-up. He injected a solution to expand my pupil. He must have got the wrong bottle. I left the doctor’s, I was feeling fine, I walked towards the coach, and everything went hazy. The last thing I saw was the coach, like a red cloud.

Aveugle au revolver, 2010
19:10, June 9, 2008. I am thirty-nine years and nine days old. In Gültepe, two women jump into my taxi. On the way they keep shouting, “Faster, faster!” I flash my lights, I honk my horn. This maddens the driver of a metal gray Megane II on my left. We trade insults. We get out of our cars. The stranger is five foot nine inches tall and must weigh over 220 lbs. He socks me one then gets back into his car. My head is spinning, but I do the same. Further ahead, on Yahya Kemal Mahallesi Square, he has stopped his car and is blocking the road. I note that his number is VE 2106. I am slightly higher up because the road is going downhill. I stop and get out. The man calmly gets out of his vehicle. First I see his left foot. Then his left hand, which is holding a revolver. He turns round. He walks towards me at an unhurried pace, calm and determined. I can’t really make out his features because his face is so fat. No expression. As if he’s just been pulled out of the freezer. The top four buttons of his shirt are undone. He is wearing jeans. He has a ten-day beard, chestnut hair. Our eyes meet. His are brown or black. I see no sign of hatred, anger or joy. We don’t say a word. He grabs my head, holds it against his chest with his arm, and fires a bullet into my left eye which comes back out above the right eye. Since then I have forgotten my wife’s face, my children’s… Everything has gone. But I can still clearly see a man getting out of a car with a revolver in his left hand. Maybe one day this image will disappear just like the others, but it will never be replaced. All that’s left will be black. Until that day, it’s the last one, and the only one. I lost my trial. The man is a Mafioso, he threatened my passengers, they refused to testify. As for me, I’m unable to identify him.

Aveugle au divan, 2010
There is no last image, there’s no image at all: I was born blind. But there is a dream image. A convertible. I am driving. Shades, jeans, T-shirt. A woman. Techno music. The road – straight, because it’s faster – runs beside the sea. The car is black.

The Last Image
In Istanbul, I met blind people, most of whom had lost their sight all of a sudden. I asked them to describe to me what they had seen for the last time

Aveugle au lever de soleil, 2010

It was March 14, 2004, at about seven o’clock. After my morning prayer I went out onto the balcony of my hospital room to watch the sun rise. I wondered if it would ever rise for me ever again. I knew just how critical the operation was because I’d overheard a my parents talking with the doctor: an 85% chance of not making it, with the remaining 15% divided between paralysis, impaired mental functions, loss of eyesight and a complete cure. I put blind in second spot. I looked out over the sea, behind the buildings, the sun in the clouds, the transition from darkness to light. As if for the last time

Aveugle au minibus, 2010

The right eye was an accident, a door handle, when I was ten. The left one was a medical error. I had glaucoma. On July 21, 1981 I went to see the doctor. Just for a check-up. He injected a solution to expand my pupil. He must have got the wrong bottle. I left the doctor’s, I was feeling fine, I walked towards the coach, and everything went hazy. The last thing I saw was the coach, like a red cloud.

Aveugle au revolver, 2010

19:10, June 9, 2008. I am thirty-nine years and nine days old. In Gültepe, two women jump into my taxi. On the way they keep shouting, “Faster, faster!” I flash my lights, I honk my horn. This maddens the driver of a metal gray Megane II on my left. We trade insults. We get out of our cars. The stranger is five foot nine inches tall and must weigh over 220 lbs. He socks me one then gets back into his car. My head is spinning, but I do the same. Further ahead, on Yahya Kemal Mahallesi Square, he has stopped his car and is blocking the road. I note that his number is VE 2106. I am slightly higher up because the road is going downhill. I stop and get out. The man calmly gets out of his vehicle. First I see his left foot. Then his left hand, which is holding a revolver. He turns round. He walks towards me at an unhurried pace, calm and determined. I can’t really make out his features because his face is so fat. No expression. As if he’s just been pulled out of the freezer. The top four buttons of his shirt are undone. He is wearing jeans. He has a ten-day beard, chestnut hair. Our eyes meet. His are brown or black. I see no sign of hatred, anger or joy. We don’t say a word. He grabs my head, holds it against his chest with his arm, and fires a bullet into my left eye which comes back out above the right eye. Since then I have forgotten my wife’s face, my children’s… Everything has gone. But I can still clearly see a man getting out of a car with a revolver in his left hand. Maybe one day this image will disappear just like the others, but it will never be replaced. All that’s left will be black. Until that day, it’s the last one, and the only one. I lost my trial. The man is a Mafioso, he threatened my passengers, they refused to testify. As for me, I’m unable to identify him

Aveugle au divan, 2010

There is no last image, there’s no image at all: I was born blind. But there is a dream image. A convertible. I am driving. Shades, jeans, T-shirt. A woman. Techno music. The road – straight, because it’s faster – runs beside the sea. The car is black.

What do you see?

On 18 March 1990, when some paintings were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the frames of works by Vermeer, Flinck and Rembrandt were left behind. After restoration, they were hung back in their rightful place, demarcating the absence. I asked the museum staff and visitors to tell me what they saw inside the frames

Rembrandt, A Lady and Gentleman in Black

I don’t see something very communicative. I see a frame and nothing in the frame. You know it’s an absence, but you don’t know an absence of what * I see vacant space that’s not vacant. I see a space of meditation on what’s missing. I see a frame that doesn’t really stand in as a substitute or an understudy for the painting, a frame that makes the absence of the painting striking. It’s just a holding place. A space that shows a painting is gone and reminds you it will come back * All I can see is that ghost, that missing child, between the man and the woman. I’m focused on this wonderful sort of secret, remembering the absence more than the painting. It was more fascinating for what you couldn’t see than for what you did. I’m connecting the loss with that child who may have been painted out because he died. And now, everyone’s gone * I can picture their faces perfectly-a man and a woman-but this painting never meant much to me, and why anyone would take it-that’s just a mystery * I see the tremendous amount of varnish we’ve built up around Rembrandt, so we can’t really see Rembrandt anymore. Maybe that’s why the frame is empty * I see sacrilege. I see a frame that makes the absence of the painting striking. I see an amazing void that reminds you of the power of something so simple as canvas with paint on it. I see a space that can’t be filled by anything else. Replacement would be dishonest; it would give us the sensation that we are acting as if we weren’t a huge loss * I don’t feel the public needs to be reminded; I just like the way the frame looks. I like its dimensions, the way its crowns these chairs. I love the framing of the damask pattern behind. I see a lot of roses. That’s what I see. I see bouquets. I don’t think that you would pay the same kind of attention to them if they weren’t framed * I just see a narrative. I see that once there was a painting, and it is gone. But I thought I would see more of the absence, I thought it would be more «misssing.» This empty frame is a great idea conceptually, but at first, I didn’t even notice that this was the room. Then when its pointed out, you see the absence * Maybe I’m just tired, for me there’s nothing there. But if you didn’t have the frame, people would think there is a gap * Knowing that this frame once held a masterpiece, I can look at it in two ways : I can see it as this sad emblem of a terrible loss, the fabric representing a Rembrandt that doesn’t exist. Or I can look at it as a celebration of this exquisite silk * It almost looks like a curtain. Like before a play. Except it’s not hiding anything and there isn’t much to look at. I imagine they took out the painting? May be they meant to leave it that way to exercise people’s imagination * I see an attempt to draw attention to the frame. It might be because the frame isn’t always looked at, it’s always what’s in the frame * It’s hard to imagine a painting, because it’s gone. And that’s the point of leaving the frame there. They want to make us believe it’s not * I see something very vague. It’s been so long. This painting was already quiet and sad and absent * I see the portrait of a couple, in a storage facility somewhere...

Vermeer, The Concert

When I stand in front of this empty space, I see a woman deep in concentration playing the harpsichord, and the woman on the other side just about to emit a note from her body. And i hear music playing * I see a very old wooden frame with no picture in it, and behind it, a brown background, a velvet cloth. That’s all there is. There is no reason for this frame to be here. What am I supposed to see? This empty space represents space, just space * The picture arises. I contemplate a painting stronger than its absence. If you know this work, you see it better in the velvet than in a reproduction. I see people making music. You are looking at this silent picture but you’re aware of music being made in the painting. A flute player with his back to you, a woman at a harpsit chord and a woman singing, palpable. In my dreams I mostly see her. I am so attached to her that I should be able to know where she is * I don’t see much of anything. I see an empty frame, and behind the frame is this very dark fabric. I certainly see a solemn space. A little bit reproachful * I see colors. On the left, the yellow sleeve of the woman, the trapezoidal red shape of the back of the chair and then that blue... I see the luxurious jacket the singer is wearing and the shadowy foreground with that rich, oriental carpet over the table. I see three colors, that sort of dance across the surface. It’s red, yellow, blue-it’s Mondrian * I see flashes of what is supposed to be there. I see The Concert. When I give people a tour, I point and I say : this is The Concert. But there is nothing there. Except a framed space that represents frustration * I see a black fabric, a little bit spooky. It says I could put anything I wanted inside the frame, but the blackness seems to be fighting against my desire to imagine something in there * I’ve never seen this picture in person, so I see crime-scene pictures. The frame lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, with broken glass contained within. The chalk line they put around the body-that’s what this frame is to me. But it never goes away; you see the body every day * It’s a sad and nostalgic image. I see textures and nuances. I see this soft lightwashing over the velvet. I see this dark shadow to the right, and this very pale horizontal line across the center. I see this tiny layer of dust, especially on the lower left-hand edge. And of course, because the velvet is so spare and simple. I focus on the frame, the gold-etched outlines of flowers and the larger floral shapes, almost like sunflowers, around the edges. The outside is very charged and the inside is very quiet. And, for whatever reason I have this slight feeling that the frame is looking at me * I see a frame that shows an absence. I see something everyone is denied the pleasure of seeing. I see a loss that is just indescribable. I see my impossibility to ever see the real thing * Today I just see velvet, but of course there’s much more * My job is to bring it back, so I see my failure. I see this void even in my nightmares. There is a car, and, in it, a painting with a plastic bag over it. I take the bag off and it’s not the painting that I want. But I know that one day, in the middle of the night, I’ll receive a telephone call : Vermeer is back

Because

Curtains conceal images and tell us the reasons behind each shot before the act of taking a photograph is triggered.

Christ, 2018
Because I burst out laughing when I discover him in one of the church’s alleys
Because I can’t believe my eyes
Because he seems to be asking himself what’s happening to him
Because I ask myself if the faithful see what I see

Without Child, 2018
Because I found online a seven-word definition of me online: "Sophie Calle, artist without child by choice."
Out of sheer mischief, since one happens to be around.

The Unknown Woman, 2018
Because just at the moment my attention is wandering off, she walks into the courtyard of the restaurant where I’m seating Because without ever looking at us, she takes countless shots with her phone Because she seems to be aiming at something above our heads, and there is nothing above our heads Because she’s wearing a simple black nylon outfit Because of her body Because of her spread legs Because of Goya.

North Pole, 2018
Because I am there, on the bridge Because I am with Marie who doesn’t take pictures Because we are alone Because that’s what you do when you are at the end of the world Because I won’t be back to the North Pole anytime soon Because I can’t resist Because of the silence Because of the solemnity Because of day when it is night Because of the blue, the clear sky, the grey sea Because it is the night of September 11 Because I want to believe in that image Because you never know For the memory of it.

Father - Mother, 2018
Because revenge is a dish best served cold

Exterminator, 2021
Because two thousand twenty

Chapel Room of consolation

Curtains conceal images and tell us the reasons behind each shot before the act of taking a photograph is triggered.

To the visitors who have come from far away to see Picassos, I want to say that I alone am the reason for their absence. Stung by remorse, I am offering you a tête-à-tête with La Celestina, in the museum chapel.

Rampe Simounet

The slightest superstitions terrified Picasso, but the most radical was his refusal to make a will: ‘It brings death closer’, he would say.

My mother wrote in her diary: ‘Sophie is so morbid that she will come and visit me more often in my grave than in Rue Boulard.’ As for me, to keep death at bay, I photographed cemeteries, filmed my dying mother, tried to organise a dress rehearsal for my funeral, owned a burial plot in Montparnasse before relinquishing it for family reasons, and scattered envelopes around my house containing so many wills written in haste before each trip. So as then to move on to other things

Because
Curtains conceal images and tell us the reasons behind each shot before the act of taking a photograph is triggered.

Consolation Room
To the visitors who have come from far away to see Picassos, I want to say that I alone am the reason for their absence. Stung by remorse, I am offering you a tête-à-tête with La Célestine.

The slightest superstitions terrified Picasso, but the most radical was to make out a last will and testament : “that attracts death”, he would say.
Pablo Picasso

My mother wrote in her diary: ‘Sophie is so morbid that she will come and visit me more often in my grave than in Rue Boulard.’ As for me, to keep death at bay, I photographed cemeteries, filmed my dying mother, tried to organise a dress rehearsal for my funeral, owned a burial plot in Montparnasse before relinquishing it for family reasons, and scattered envelopes around my house containing so many wills written in haste before each trip. So as then to move on to other things.;

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