Sophie Calle - "Take Care of Yourself" Solo Exhibition Art Walk

In Calle's "Take Care of Yourself," the video art Marionnett-Madelon (2008) is featured. Paris has endless exhibitions—major and minor, art shows or various types. You cannot imagine how many there are; you could not finish them all in a year, with new exhibitions constantly emerging again and again. For over twenty years, I have been single-mindedly trying to see every art exhibition held in Paris at a glance, or until I am fully satisfied. Thus, I visit art exhibitions every week and every month, especially contemporary art shows. Visiting art exhibitions has become my custom and ritual of life in Paris. Almost any contemporary art theme exhibition, solo show, or retrospective happening in Paris escapes neither my sight nor my experience. No matter what, I go to experience and visit. Visiting exhibitions has become my intellectual and emotional leisure in Paris life and a witness to art.

This week, I visited the National Library for Sophie Calle, France's most representative current artist, whose solo exhibition "Take Care of Yourself" is one of the most important and brilliant exhibitions in Paris since spring (comparable to the Centre Pompidou's "Louise Bourgeois Retrospective"). This unique exhibition was held in the reading room of the old National Library, curated by the famous artist Buren. Who would have thought it would be exhibited in a reading room? Establishing space is indeed curator D. Buren's specialty. Exhibiting art in such a wide and spacious reading room is unimaginable. The entire exhibition is constructed from an artistic reading perspective. Although there were no walls to hang works in this vast exhibition space, it unexpectedly became a successful and perfect exhibition. The works shone brilliantly due to the space, and the space flowed perfectly due to the works.

This "Take Care of Yourself" solo exhibition was not only successfully arranged, but Sophie Calle's own works were also extraordinarily brilliant. Under their mutual brilliance, the visitor's mood became incredibly relaxed. The works of this solo exhibition revolve around the stories of 107 women, interpreting the state of mind reflected in an "interrupted email." In the most literary and conceptual context, through photographs, articles, videos, and one plot text after another, the visit becomes a poetic reading—a double reading of both images and texts. It immerses the audience in a narrative literary context, allowing them to freely soar in personal imaginative spaces and the realm of human emotions.