The Hara Museum is proud to present a solo exhibition by the French artist Sophie Calle. This exhibition by one of France’s leading contemporary artists consists of two parts. The Last Image (2010) is an installation that weaves together text and photographs taken by the artist about people who have lost the power of sight. Voir la mer (See the sea) (2011) captures on film the expression of persons seeing the ocean for the first time. To the sound of waves, Calle’s installations quietly contemplate questions that she has been exploring since her work The Blind in 1986: What is beauty? What does it mean to see? One possible answer provided by a blind man was the spark that propelled the artist to ponder these questions: “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen is the sea.”
Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, color photograph （reference image）
©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Calle is largely known for her highly narrative artwork incorporating both photographs and text. She has held solo exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, Centre Pompidou and other major museums throughout the world, and has represented her country at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and other international art events.
In work revolving around intimate relations with others, Calle weaves together fact and fiction in ways that are fantastic and constantly surprising. And yet the themes which she addresses – identity, communication, memory, perception – are all universal in nature. Fourteen years ago at the Hara Museum, many viewers were moved by Exquisite Pain (1999), an exhibition that incorporated beautiful photographs and embroidered text in a tale about emotional healing through the exchange of heartbreaking experiences with others.
The current exhibition presents Calle’s most recent works on vision and perception, subjects that she has explored for many years. Consisting of two parts, The Last Image and Voir la mer, it is a show that caused a stir when exhibited for the first time in Istanbul at the Sabanci Museum (2011). Both are being presented in Japan for the first time. Also included is a special collaborative piece featuring an image from the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes series.
A related exhibition of selected works from the Hara Museum Collection will be on view at Hara Museum ARC (the Hara Museum’s annex in Shibukawa, Gunma) and a film screening and talk by the artist at the Institut Français du Japon-Tokyo will also be held.
Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, color photograph （reference image）
©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Exhibition Details
Title: Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time
Dates: March 20 (Wednesday) – June 30 (Sunday), 2013
Place: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art 4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001
Tel: 03-3445-0651 E-mail: info@haramuseum.or.jp Website: http://www.haramuseum.or.jp
Mobile site: http://mobile.haramuseum.or.jp Blog: https://www.art-it.asia/en/u/HaraMuseum_e
Twitter: http://twitter.com/haramuseum (in Japanese only / account name: @haramuseum)
Organized by: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Under the auspices of: Embassy of France in Japan/Institut Français du Japon
Supported by: Institut Français du Japon
Cooperation provided by: Samsung Electronics Japan, Gallery Koyanagi
Hours: 11:00 am – 5:00 pm, Wednesdays until 8:00 pm (except March 20) (last entry 30 minutes before closing)
Closed: Mondays (open on April 29, May 6), April 30, May 7
Admission: General 1,000 yen; Students 700 yen (high school and university) or 500 yen (elementary and junior high); Free for Hara Museum members, students through high school every Saturday during the school term; 100 yen discount per person for groups of 20 or more.
Directions: 5 minutes by taxi or 15 minutes on foot from JR Shinagawa Station (Takanawa exit); or from the same station take the Tan No.96 bus, get off at the first stop (Gotenyama), and walk 3 minutes.
Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, video installation ©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, video installation ©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Exquisite Pain (to be exhibited at Hara Museum ARC)
Viewers in Japan may remember Exquisite Pain, Sophie Calle’s solo exhibition held at the Hara Museum fourteen years ago. In part one of that show (Countdown), letters to her most beloved person and photographs were used to relate the story of the worse day of her life. Part two (Countup) was the story of her gradual recovery, which she achieved by sharing her story of hurt with other people and then listening in turn to their stories about the worse experience of their lives. These many stories – of lost love, of lost eyesight, of the birth of a crippled child – were embroidered with black thread onto white sheets that were hung on the gallery walls. The unfolding of this part of her life and her encounter with the lives of others undoubtedly touched the hearts of many viewers. The fuzzy distinction, however, between fact and fiction that runs through her work underscores the danger of unquestioning belief.
Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, video installation ©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Who Is Sophie Calle?
Sophie Calle is a French contemporary artist who has won fame largely for her highly narrative and often controversial work composed of photographs and language. For the project The Sleepers (1979), Calle photographed and interviewed 24 strangers whom she had invited to come to her home and sleep in her bed. For The Hotel (1981), Calle worked as a chambermaid at a hotel in Venice where she photographed the rooms of the hotel guests. The Address Book (1983) refers to an address book found by the artist. Calling the people listed in the book, Calle conducted interviews about the owner and then published them in the French daily newspaper Libération. These projects, including those made during the 1990s such as True Stories and Suite Venitienne, were intriguing mixtures of fact and fiction. During this time, she also began working on a series about persons without sight, beginning with The Blind. It was a profound examination into the nature of sight and perception, which lie at the very foundation of art.
Calle’s doings as a filmmaker and other aspects of her lifestyle inspired the author Paul Auster to use her as the model for a fictional character named Maria Turner in his novel Leviathan. Calle in turn assumed the personae of Maria Turner in a work she created called Double Game (1998). These works, which push the boundaries of contemporary art, remain a focus of much attention today.
Calle was born in Paris in 1953. In her late-teens, she left home to wander for seven years, returning to Paris at the age of 26. From that time, she began creating, and from 1980, she began to exhibit. She has held solo exhibitions at major museums such as the Tate Gallery (1998) and the Centre Pompidou (2003).
In Japan, she has held several solo exhibitions, including Exquisite Pain at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and an exhibition at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2003). Her work has also appeared in such group exhibitions as Beyond the photographic frame / 11 recent works (1990, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki) and Images in Transition: Photographic Representations in the Eighties (1990, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). She currently lives in Malakoff on the outskirts of Paris.
© Yves Geant
Related Exhibition and Events:
Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle and Miranda July from the Hara Museum Collection
March 16 (Saturday) – June 26 (Wednesday), 2013
Hara Museum ARC Galleries A, B and C (Contemporary Art)
*Exquisite Pain by Sophie Calle will be on view. Please read more about the work below.
Sophie Calle Documentary to be Screened Every Wednesday Evening
The documentary Sophie Calle: Untitled will be screened every Wednesday evening at the Hara Museum as a related event for the on-going Sophie Calle exhibition. Reservations are not required.
Date and Time: Each Wednesday (except May 29) 17:00-20:00 (the documentary will be screened three times in a loop)
Venue: The Hall at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Viewing fee: Free (museum admission is required)
* No reservations are required. Viewers may enter The Hall at any time during the screening period.
Screening schedule on Wednesdays:
June 12, 19, 26
Venue opens at 16:50
Screening starts at 17:00, 18:00, 19:00
Additional screening schedule:
June 25 (Tuesday), 27 (Thrusday), 28 (Friday)
Venue opens at 15:50
Screening starts at 16:00
* Please note that due to the limited number of seats, there may be standing room only for some visitors.
Title: Sophie Calle: Untitled (Collection Empreintes)
Director: Victoria Clay Mendoza
Producer: FOLAMOUR
Release Date: 2012
Duration: 52 minutes
For inquiries, please contact the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art at 03-3445-0651.
Bus Tour: Sophie Calle at Hara Museum ARC
Hara Museum ARC (our annex museum in Shibukawa, Gunma prefecture) will be holding the exhibition Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle and Miranda July from the Hara Museum Collection which features Calle’s large-scale installation Exquisite Pain (1999). Several bus tours have been scheduled to allow participants to enjoy the artist’s works at both the Hara Museum in Shinagawa and Hara Museum ARC on the same day.
Dates: April 20 (Saturday), May 18 (Saturday), June 8 (Saturday) and June 15 (Saturday)
*Reservations are now closed.
* Departs at 9:30 (from Hara Museum, Shinagawa) –> Returns to Shinjuku at 19:00 (tentative)
Fee: ￥6,500 (general)/￥5,500 for Hara Museum members and up to two companions.
* Includes admission to Hara Museum (Tokyo), Hara Museum ARC and Ikaho Green Bokujo.
Sophie Calle Talk and Film Screening
Date: March 16 (Saturday), 2013 4:00 pm ~
Place: Espace Images, Institut Français du Japon-Tokyo
Admission: free
Please contact Institut Français du Japon-Tokyo for more details: Tel: 03-5206-2500 http://www.institutfrancais.jp/tokyo
*Reservations are now closed for this event.
Special Installation: Couldn’t Capture Death
A special two-day installation entitled Couldn’t Capture Death (2007) by Sophie Calle will be on display at the Uji-An Teahouse located next to the Hara Museum. The installation, which was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2007, consists of text together with 13 minutes of video taken during the last moments of her mother’s life.
* Entrance to the installation will be limited to 10 persons per 30-minute session. Participants will be assigned to a specific 30-minute session within their requested time.
Dates: March 20 (Wednesday/national holiday) and March 21 (Thursday), 11:00 to 16:30
Location: Uji-An Teahouse *Participants are asked to meet at the museum beforehand.
Fee: Free (admission fee to the Hara Museum is required/ Regular ￥1,000, Students ￥700)
How to apply: Please send an e-mail to info@haramuseum.or.jp with the following information: your name, desired date (March 20 or 21), time slot (11:00-13:30 or 14:00-16:30), number of persons in your party and their names, and your contact telephone number. Reservations will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Those accepted will be notified by Friday, March 8 with details regarding the gathering time for their assigned session at the teahouse.
Application period: March 5 (Tuesday) and March 6 (Wednesday) 11:00-
Lecture by Yukio Kondo
A lecture by Mr. Yukio Kondo of Keio University on the artist’s past work will be held at the Hara Museum. The lecture will be held in Japanese only.
Date: May 12 (Sunday), 15:00 to 16:30
Lecturer: Yukio Kondo (Art critic and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University)
Venue: The Hall at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Fee: General 2,000 yen, Students 1,700 yen, Hara Museum Members 1,000 yen
Lecture by Momoko Matsuzaki
When Momoko Matsuzaki saw Exquisite Pain at the Hara Museum 14 years ago, she was so moved that she decided to go to France to research Sophie Calle on her native soil. She has continued that research ever since. In this lecture, she will speak about her experience of Sophie Calle and various materials collected in the field, including Calle’s Address Book articles in the Liberation that created an uproar.
The lecture will be held in Japanese only.
Date: May 29 (Wednesday), 18:00 to 19:30
Lecturer: Momoko Matsuzaki (Radio Scriptwriter)
Venue: The Hall at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Fee (admission included): General 2,000 yen, Students 1,700 yen, Hara Museum Members 1,000 yen
Lecture by Aomi Okabe
“Sophie Calle’s Art and the Rules of the Game: Together with the Novels of Paul Auster, Maha Harada and Others” Aomi Okabe has been researching Sophie Calle for many years and has interviewed her in the past. In this talk, she presents her unique perspective on the artist and her art. The lecture will be held in Japanese only.
Date: June 30 (Sunday), 15:00 to 16:30
Lecturer: Aomi Okabe (Art critic / Curator)
Venue: The Hall at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Fee: General 2,000 yen, Students 1,700 yen, Hara Museum Members 1,000 yen
Ticket Stub Discount Campaign: Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time x All You Need is LOVE
Among the works featured in the Roppongi Hills and Mori Art Museum 10th Anniversary Exhibition All You Need Is LOVE: From Chagall to Kusama and Hatsune Miku (Friday, April 26 – Sunday, September 1, 2013) is the Sophie Calle work Take Care of Yourself (2007). The ticket stub discount campaign allows a visitor who shows a ticket stub from All You Need is LOVE to receive a discount on their admission to the Hara Museum’s exhibition Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time, or vice-versa.
At the Hara Museum ticket counter, show your ticket stub (or unused admission ticket) from the Mori Art Museum’s All You Need is LOVE exhibition to receive a 100 yen discount on your ticket to Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time.
* This discount cannot be used in combination with other discounts.
* Only one discount for one visitor per ticket stub.
* For Visitors with a Ticket Stub for Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time
If you show your ticket stub at the Mori Art Museum’s ticket counter, you will receive a 200 yen discount on your ticket to All You Need is LOVE.
* This discount cannot be used in combination with other discounts.
* Only one discount for one visitor per ticket stub.
Mori Art Museum website
http://www.mori.art.museum