Who is Sophie Calle, one of France’s leading contemporary artists!

New works on the theme of “absence” will be on display at the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum reopening commemorative exhibition

The Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum’s first exhibition since its reopening will feature works by the late 19th century artist Toulouse-Lautrec and contemporary writer Sophie Calle, presented in a double feature loosely linked to the theme of “absence.”

Here, the curator in charge of this exhibition would like to introduce Sophie Calle, the contemporary artist with whom our museum will be collaborating for the first time.

Sophie Calle began to live a nomadic life from her late teens, returning to Paris at the age of 26 and beginning to create art. She has held solo exhibitions at major art museums around the world, including the Tate in London (1998) and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2003), and was selected to represent France at the 2007 Venice Biennale. She also recently made headlines when it was announced that she had been awarded the 35th Praemium Imperiale Award, making her a true representative artist of contemporary France.

Sophie Calle has produced many works combining photography and text based on her private experiences. Some of her most well-known works include Suite in Venice (1980), in which she followed people she encountered and captured their actions, and Blind People (1986), in which she asked blind people about “beautiful things.” Many people may have also come to know her through her work Localized Acute Pain (1999-2000), which expressed the pain of her own experience of heartbreak while staying in Japan, and her video work Looking at the Sea (2011), which was also screened at Shibuya Scramble Crossing.

The Autobiography series, which is included in this exhibition, also deals with familiar events: the death of his father, mother, and beloved cat. While he is known for creating works based on such personal experiences, he also creates works that deal with the theme of the “absence” of artworks, such as What Do You See? (2013), which was inspired by a case of theft of a painting from an actual art museum.

In recent years, he has also held exhibitions related to “museums” and their “collections” at the Hunting Museum in Paris (2017) and the Museums of Marseille (2019). The Picasso Museum in Paris surprised people last year with an exhibition of Picasso’s “absence” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death, and this exhibition will feature one of the series created for that occasion, Picasso Imprisoned (2023).

The exhibition will feature these representative series from Sophie Calle’s recent years, as well as her new work Grand Bouquet, inspired by the absence of Grand Bouquet, a work in the museum’s collection, and will delve deeper into the theme of absence that underlies many of her works.

The hidden “absence” of “Grand Bouquet” – usually kept behind a temporary wall in the exhibition room – was the inspiration for Sophie Calle’s new work. Please come to the exhibition to see Sophie Calle’s work!

Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum of Art Reopening Commemoration Exhibition “Absence” – Toulouse-Lautrec and Sophie Calle

• Period: Saturday, November 23, 2024 – Sunday, January 26, 2025
• Site of Museum: https://mimt.jp/ex/ls2024/