Work Description

In the book Leviathan, Paul Auster thanks Sophie Calle for allowing him to mix reality with fiction. He used certain episodes of his life to create, between pages 84 and 93 of his story, a fictional character named Maria, who then leaves the artist to follow his own story. Seduced by this double, Sophie Calle decides to play with Paul Auster's novel, and to mix, in her turn and in her own way, reality and fiction. In Leviathan, Maria submits to the same rituals as the artist. But Paul Auster slipped into the portrait of his character rules of the game of his invention. In order to get closer to Maria, Sophie Calle decided to obey the book. The author imposes on his creature a chromatic diet composed of foods of a single color per day: the artist has followed the same diet. He makes her live whole days based on certain letters of the alphabet: Sophie Calle did like her. Of Obedience (Book I): The game is for the artist to “obey” the unrealized features of the character. Thus we discover in Book I chromatic meals and days in b or in c (like Calle). This same work begins with the reference passage of the novel, with framed paragraphs that refer to the other booklets in which we discover or recognize the “episodes of life”, that is to say the works of S. Calle. The Birthday Ritual (Book II): The Birthday Ritual (Book II) translates an inventory bias that pays homage to C. Boltanski and A. Messager. The Sets (Book III): This booklet opens more broadly on this anthropology of the private sphere specific to the works of Sophie Calle and which makes the artist (with Messager) the harbinger of recent questions about the intimate. To be continued… (Book IV): “For months, I had been following strangers on the street. For the pleasure of following them and not because they interested me. I photographed them without their knowledge, noted their movements, then finally lost them seen and forgot…” Preamble – Sophie Calle The Hotel (Book V): “On Monday, February 16, 1981, I succeeded, after a year of steps and waiting, in getting hired as a maid for a three-week replacement in a Venetian hotel. I was given twelve rooms on the fourth floor. During my hours of cleaning, I examined the personal effects of travelers, the signs of the temporary installation of certain customers, their succession in the same room. I observed in detail lives that remained foreign to me. On Friday, March 5, 1981, my replacement ended. Sophie Calle – Preamble The address book (Book VI): The life of Sophie and how she influenced that of Maria (books II, III, IV, V, VI): These rituals that Paul Auster “borrowed” from me to shape Maria are: the Venetian suite, the wardrobe, the striptease, the spinning, the hotel, the address book, the birthday ritual. Léviathan gives me the opportunity to present the artistic projects that inspired the writer and that we now share, Maria and I. This book VI is deployed (going from 4 pages to 24 pages) on the occasion of this new edition with new elements. Gotham Handbook; New York, instructions for use (Book VII): “Handbook of Instructions for S. C.'s Personal Use of How to Beautify Life in New York (at His Request).” Paul Auster