Sophie Calle (Photofile)

The perfect primer on acclaimed French artist Sophie Calle.

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist and conceptual artist. Her work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is renowned for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives, which she has deployed in her acclaimed works Suite Venitienne, The Hotel and Address Book. She has had major exhibitions all over the world, including at the 2007 Venice Biennale, the Whitechapel Gallery in London, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, and has worked closely with the writer Paul Auster. The Guardian called her ‘the Marcel Duchamp of dirty laundry’, and she was among the names in Blake Gopnik’s list ‘The 10 Most Important Artists of Today’, with Gopnik arguing, ‘It is the unartiness of Calle’s work – its refusal to fit any of the standard pigeonholes, or over anyone’s sofa – that makes it deserve space in museums.