As the title of her first retrospective in the UK implies, the French conceptual artist Sophie Calle seeks and embraces the other and unknown. Well known for her provocative, and often controversial, social projects, many of her works explore issues of voyeurism, identity and intimacy. Like a detective or anthropologist, Calle delves into the lives of others almost without scruple. For several early projects, she photographed strangers asleep in her bed and secretly interviewed the contacts in a lost address book about the owner, thereupon publishing her finds in the French newspaper Libération. In other works, she scrutinizes those closest to her, as in the multi-media piece Souci (2009), named after the last word Calle’s mother uttered upon her deathbed. On film, she almost obsessively tries to capture the final breath and time of death. Strangely, her mother’s passing is not a distressing experience, but a moving and highly majestic act.

The highlight of the show is the premiere of the English version of Prenez soin de vous or Take Care of Yourself, which was exhibited at the 2007 Venice Biennale. After receiving a breakup email from her then partner, Calle asked 107 women in various professions, ranging from a ballerina to a translator to a criminologist, to each respond to the email. A woman’s private pain was thus transformed into an interdisciplinary, collective artistic experience with both poetic and comedic moments. Walking through the multi-media installation of photographs, novellas, videos, sheet music, mathematical diagrams, Latin text, and so on, Take Care of Yourself is overwhelming at first. Even so, the richly interwoven images and text make engrossing narratives if you pause to look and read. Calle’s talent as a master storyteller and conceptual artist clearly shine through in this exhibition.

Until Jan 3

MAIA PECK