Catwoman´s Revenge

 

The French artist Sophie Calle and her smart cat skirt in EMMA.  
Photo © Paula Hietaranta

Sophie Calle´s famous work Take Care of Yourself opened last week in EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art. 

Since then I have read a lot of Ms. Calle´s interviews, looked at the videos and pictures of her work – and of course found more and more difficult to write about it. It is easier to be smart if you have only your own ignorance to play with...

The idea of this work started some years ago, when Ms. Calle got an e-mail from her boyfriend telling that he wanted to end their relationship and finished it with the words ”Prenez soin de vous”, Take care of yourself.

When she asked her girlfriends for their opinion of the letter, she found there a beginning of an interesting project: how would the message be interpreted by different women. ”I asked 107 women chosen for their profession or skills to analyze the letter, to comment on it, to sing it, to dance it, to exhaust it, to understand it for me”, Ms. Calle says.

This huge work of photographs, videos and texts took two years to complete, and the result was seen for the first time at the French Pavillion in Venice Biennale 2007.

Ms. Calle says that the work was not meant to be a public revenge on Mr. X, but what else it is?

After all, some of the comments are really cruel, and  at the end the poor guy is nothing more a neat package of minced meat. 

 The famous letter, English translation.

The English edition of Sophie Calle´s Take Care of Yourself is in EMMA until 10.6.2012. Address Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola, Espoo.Open Tue, Thur, Fri 11am-6pm, Wed 11am to 8pm (free admission from 6pm-8pm), Sat-Sun 11am-5pm. http://www.emma.museum/  

PS. If you cannot visit the exhibition do watch some videos of it in YouTube, for example Victoria Abril (www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=kxybJCMFs30) or Laurie Anderson (www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBAWioAu3yA&feature=related) or the parrot Brenda eating up the letter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPnkQFWPsQ)

Sophi