Sophie Calle - Neither give nor throw away

Catalogue for the exhibition Sophie Calle - Neither give nor throw away (1 July - 29 September 2024).

Shortly before my exhibition A toi de faire, ma mignonne at the Musée Picasso in Paris, a storm caused damage to my storeroom and mould spores seeped into Les Aveugles. The restorers decided it was best to destroy the works. But Les Aveugles had been too important in my life to end theirs on the dump. I then thought of an idea by the artist Roland Topor to bury an old jumper that he could neither give away nor throw away.

The cryptoporticoes of Arles lend themselves to such a ceremony: the previous year, during the Rencontres, the humidity that reigned there had insidiously attacked the photographs on display, and fungus had won the day. This place, which was supposed to protect them, had paradoxically acted as a tool of destruction. It's picturesque that this should have happened in a city that plays a major role in preserving images. So I imagined that I could bury my blind people here, so that they could finish decomposing and their words, which speak only of beauty, could sink into the foundations of the city.

I realised that the rot had chosen its victims. Alongside those eyes that can't see, it had only attacked projects that symbolically evoked death, as if they had lost their immunity: bouquets of dried flowers, pictures of graves, a photo of my mattress on which a man set himself on fire, paintings of my mother's last words. And since I was going to offer a second death to my dying works, I also invited things from my life that are no longer of any use but that I can neither give away nor throw away.