Sophie Calle; For The Last And First Time

I went to Istanbul. I spoke to blind people, most of whom had lost their sight suddenly. I asked them to describe the last thing they saw.

~~ Sophie Calle

La Dernière Image (The last Image), realized in 2011 in Istanbul, once named the "city of the blind", gives voice to men and women who have lost their sight and asks them to describe the last image they remember, their last memory of the visible world.

The new solo exhibition by the French conceptual artist Sophie Calle Pour la dernière et pour la première fois (For the Last and First Time) is currently on view, alongside a series of recent films, Voir la mer (See the sea) from the lens of Caroline Champetier's camera, at Les Rencontres d'Arles, Chapelle Saint-Martin du Méjan, France.

For the Last and First Time is a heartbreaking exhibit. The photographs are so moving that you will have tears just by looking at them.

Born in 1953 in Paris, Sophie Calle's work, which combines image and narrative, amounts to a systematic laying bare of reality, whether it be her own or other people's, with a limited portion left to chance. Absence is a central theme in her work. She is now considered as one of the most important artists of our time.

Sophie Calle lives and works in Malakoff, France.

Copyright @ Adagp, Paris 2012. Photo: Florian Kleinefenn. Courtesy Galerie Perrotin

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