TRAIL MAKER

French artist Sophie Calle’s work spans imagined lives and actual death. Here, she talks about exhibitionism and intimacies, love and loss, and more than a century’s worth of lonely hearts ads that inspired her latest project and a 20-page portfolio for Wallpaper*

- AMY SERAFIN

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It is a stiflingly hot day in August, and Sophie Calle is wearing a flowered dress and tinted eyeglasses, listening to Bob Dylan’s latest album in a loft-like space she calls ‘my church’. The house is a former chapel in the Camargue, the wild region of southern France where the artist has spent summers throughout her life. A zebra bursts from the wall above the door, part of her large taxidermy collection, each animal named after a different friend (the zebra is Daniel, as in Buren, a French artist renowned for his work with stripes). Another wall features an assortment of art pieces by Calle and others, including, framed in silver lettering, the word ‘souci’ (‘worry’), the last thing her mother said. Abandoned tombstones decorate the garden.

Calle, 67, has become one of France’s most important contemporary artists by using her own life and the imagined lives of others as subject matter. Her books and exhibitions combine photos or video with text, exploring such themes as absence, death, suffering and desire. She does not hesitate to break taboos, overstep boundaries, or invite viewers to share in the discomfort (or guilty pleasure) of voyeurism. Even when the content is mundane, the works are provocative and compelling. They can be surprisingly touching, and just as surprisingly funny.