Cover Sophie Calle’s ‘Take Care of Yourself’ (2007) (Photo: Florian Kleinefenn / Aia Productions; courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Arndt & Partner, Gallery Paula Cooper)
Sophie Calle’s ‘Take Care of Yourself’ (2007) (Photo: Florian Kleinefenn / Aia Productions; courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Arndt & Partner, Gallery Paula Cooper)
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Our art series demystifies the artworks we love—or love to hate. This time, we explore an art piece that started with a breakup
If you’ve ever considered breaking up with someone by email, let Sophie Calle’s artwork Take Care of Yourself (2007) serve as a cautionary tale. The French writer and photographer received an email from her boyfriend ending their relationship, the last line of which read “take care of yourself”. The message left Calle not knowing how to feel or respond. So, she decided to send the letter to 107 women of various professional backgrounds, asking them to analyse the letter.
The result was a influx of responses varying from songs, crossword puzzles and psychoanalyses to comedic takes, fairy tales and religious interpretations. A rifle shooter shot at the letter, creating bullet holes through which light shone, another woman read the message while cutting onions, and blew her nose with the printed letter once she was done.
Respondents included women working in a diverse fields like anthropology, psychiatry, criminology, law and entertainment, with some of them quite well known in their respective areas of work, such as American artist Laurie Anderson and French actress Jeanne Moreau.
Read more: Meet Movana Chen, the artist who received 180 love letters and transformed them into art
Above Installation view of Sophie Calle’s “Take Care of Yourself” at the 2007 Venice Biennale (Photo: Florian Kleinefenn / Aia Productions; courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Arndt & Partner, Gallery Paula Cooper)
Installation view of Sophie Calle’s “Take Care of Yourself” at the 2007 Venice Biennale (Photo: Florian Kleinefenn / Aia Productions; courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Arndt & Partner, Gallery Paula Cooper)
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What started out as an experiment quickly transformed into a full-fledged project that landed Calle one of the most sought-after gigs in the art world—participating in the prestigious contemporary art exhibition, Venice Biennale, in 2007. Calle was selected to represent France and Take Care of Yourself was staged as an installation at the French pavilion. The installation consisted of the collective responses which took the shape of texts, films, with a total of 106 elements. The artwork explored and deconstructed ideas of love, romance, relationships, intimacy, betrayal, heartache and breakup—a thread which is common to the oeuvre of Calle’s work.
Art critics and historians often have a hard time categorising Calle’s work under any specific genre. Operating between social experimentation, and conceptual and performance art, Calle’s art probes human intention and psychology while defying social norms through acts such as sharing a private letter with over a 100 women.
In her other works too, Calle repeatedly flouts accepted social behaviours, blurring the lines between what is private and public. For one of her earlier and well-known series, The Hotel Room (1981), Calle worked at a Venice hotel as a maid and recorded (with a camera and tape recorder hidden in a bucket) anything she could find, looking through wallets, rubbish bins and closets, only sparing any locked piece of furniture or luggage. The resulting work reads like a visual diary, which Calle first installed as an exhibition and later turned into a book.
Above Sophie Calle (Photo: courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin)
Sophie Calle (Photo: courtesy of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin)
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Calle configures each of her projects in a unique way, some even include almost game-like aspects involving some kind of participation from strangers. Sometimes the participants are aware. At other times, they are not. She documents these projects via exhibition, books and films.
The photographs that are displayed in her exhibitions are simply visual evidence of her realised ideas, while the act itself—which in the case of Take Care of Yourself involves reaching out to women and compiling their responses—is the crux of the artwork.
Calle transforms the act of airing dirty laundry into an art form, one that proves to be both popular and critically acclaimed, and celebrated on an international scale. In an age where ghosting is a standard practice and fickle dating behaviour runs rife, Calle’s Take Care of Yourself strikes a resonant chord, and that’s why its art.
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Aaina was the Arts and Culture Editor of Tatler Asia. A passion for history and all things visual led her in the pursuit of art history. With extensive experience in the art world working for a range of art institutions, she combined her passion and expertise in the form of art and culture journalism. Prior to Tatler, Aaina worked as a culture reporter for South China Morning Post and editor at the online art platform Cobo Social. Additionally, she has contributed to a variety of prestigious art publications including Art Review, The Art Newspaper, Ocula, Art Agenda, Artsy, Design Anthology, and Artomity. Follow her on Instagram.
