Calle's first artist's book documents her pursuit of one man through
the streets of Venice
After following strangers on the streets in Paris for months,
photographing them and notating their movements, Sophie Calle ran into a
man at an opening whom she had followed earlier that day. "During the
course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent trip
to Venice. I decided to follow him," she writes at the beginning of
Suite Vénitienne, her first artist's book and the crucible of her
inimitable fusion of investigatory methods, fictional constructs, the
plundering of real life and the composition of self. Over the course of
almost two weeks in Venice, Calle notates, in time-stamped entries, her
surveillance of Henri B., as well as her own emotions as she seeks,
finds and follows him through the labyrinthine streets of Venice. Her
investigation is both methodical (calling every hotel, visiting the
police station) and arbitrary (sometimes following a stranger--a flower
delivery boy, for instance--hoping someone might lead her to him). This
Siglio reissue is a completely new iteration of Suite Vénitienne
(first published in 1988 and long out of print), designed in
collaboration with Calle to be the definitive English-language edition.
Printed on Japanese paper with a die-cut cover and gilded edges, this
beautiful new Siglio edition allows readers to devour this crucial and
compelling work.
Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally renowned artist whose
controversial works explore the tensions between the observed, the
reported, the secret and the unsaid. She has mounted solo shows at major
museums around the world and represented France at the Venice Biennale
in 2007. Her most recent US exhibition was the acclaimed Rachel,
Monique at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan in
2014.
