Sophie Calle: Is It Better?

Sophie Calle presents her first solo exhibition in Berlin after over 20 years at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Six bodies of work from the past three decades, spanning photography, text, installation and video, provide insight into the French conceptual artist’s diverse use of media. Calle often approaches the effects of memory, loss and history through autobiographical perspectives that are sometimes morbid, while often playful and humorous. On the occasion of the museum’s 30th anniversary, she is creating a new work, which will enter Hamburger Bahnhof’s collection as a donation.

The starting point of Sophie Calle’s solo exhibition is a work from the series The Detachment in the collection of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. The series was created in Berlin in 1996, the founding year of the museum. The twelve photographs depict public places in Berlin where symbols of the GDR were removed after reunification, accompanied by descriptions provided by passers-by. Also on view for the first time since its creation for the Musée d’Orsay in Paris is the large-scale installation Les fantômes d’Orsay (2022). Between 1978 and 1981, Calle spent time almost daily in Room 501 of the abandoned hotel in the former Gare d’Orsay railway station, which, just like Hamburger Bahnhof, was later transformed into an art museum. The installation brings together found objects, photographs and texts.

The Artist Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle (born 1953 in Paris) lives and works in Malakoff, France. She works across photography, text, performance and video, and explores themes such as voyeurism, surveillance, love, intimacy, violence and death. In most of her conceptually driven series, she combines image and text. In 2007, she represented France at the Biennale di Venezia. Her works have been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Pompidou Paris, Musée d’Orsay Paris, Tate Britain London, Hara Museum Tokyo, Musée Picasso, and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago. Calle’s works are held in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as the Louisiana Museum (DNK) and Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.