Take Care of Yourself

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Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself is a body of work (letters, writings, videos) created for the French Pavilion of the 2007 Venice Biennale – curated by Daniel Buren. Jobey, Liz (10 January 2020). "The artist Sophie Calle: 'People think they know me. But they know nothing' ". Financial Times . Retrieved 2020-03-26.

The closer Calle came to capturing Henri B., the more anguished she felt that he wouldn’t match up to the chimera she had conjured of him. “I’m afraid that the encounter might be commonplace. I don’t want to be disappointed,” she writes. In “The Hotel,” traces of Calle show up in little asides that trouble the project’s patina of neutrality; of a pair of pants drying in the shower, she writes, “Symbolic, they reflect the tedium that prevails in this room. Unless it’s just my own weariness.” Throughout, she takes care to show us that she is closer to the center of this story than she may seem. A chance encounter with a handsome guest in the hallway inspires a new plotline in which she is no longer the invisible maid but the protagonist: “For the first time, I imagine for a few seconds a patron taking an interest in my plight.”We generally leave 1/4” - 1/2” of paper showing around the image, to accommodate signatures and for visual appeal. NEW YORK—The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to present the first U.S. exhibition of Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself, a body of work created for the French Pavilion of the 2007 Venice Biennale. The show will open on 9 April 2009 and will remain on view through May at 534 West 21st Street. Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery’ (2017) where 200 people buried private messages. Photograph: Sophie Calle/Adagp, Paris 2017 Courtesy Perrotin & Paula Cooper Gallery

The sheer variety of responses, from the potentially illuminating to the absurd, all adhere to Calle's use of a conceptual constraint. In this instance, it involved the artist taking the letter's advice at its word - to take care of her self - via 107 different interpretations. The constraints, or rules, that Calle uses as starting points often allow for chance results, and as here, often make public the artist's emotional life. In this instance, Calle turns a humiliating rejection into a liberating celebration of feminine solidarity.Calle: That’s precisely why he could be my curator. He could be objective about the work. It would have been impossible if our work were too similar. Our differences were what made us get along. And he took his job very seriously, right down to the detail of each work. Dallow, Jessica, "CALLE, Sophie: French photographer and installation artist," Contemporary Women Artists. St. James Press, 1999. Hanhardt, John G. et al., Moving Pictures: Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Collection. (Hardcover) Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (2003) Take Care of Yourself” 2009 is a retrospective of her work from the 1980’s to the present. The main room and point of interest focuses on the break up letter she received from a lover. In true Calle style, once composed she consulted 107 different professional women all experts in their particular field, to examine and extract notions from the text and respond to them by using their own personal skills. Initially chosen for their word based professions for example the grammarian focused on the dryness of the vocabulary and the psychologist analysed his motives. After a while the process becomes more distant from the artist as she worked with a crossword writer, accountant, dancer and a markswoman who simply shot this letter. Calle won't say who dumped her, only that there is a one-word clue at the start of the book of the exhibition. Did he approve? "He knew about it. He didn't like the idea, but he respected it. So he decided not to meddle."