From January 26 to April 22, 2019, Sophie Calle is in the spotlight in Marseille through five solo exhibitions at the musée Grobet-Labadié, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, the Chapelle du centre de la Vieille Charité, and the château Borély. “Cinq”, a plural exhibition produced by the museums of the City of Marseille, propose an unprecedented journey through the Phocaean city.
At the heart of the Chapelle du centre de la Vieille Charité, Sophie Calle pays homage to her mother Rachel, reincarnated as a giraffe under the oval dome of Pierre Puget. In the manner of a detective story, the artist disseminates personal objects on the furniture on display at the musée Grobet-Labadié, the theater of diffuse memories. Why a basket of vegetables? Why a television turned on in snow mode? Why a burned bed? Because one object can hide another, because everyday objects have for the artist value of unforgettable relics. Because, this is the answer which she gives to painting at the musée des Beaux-Arts, like a snub to Art and its artificial academism. Opposite, at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle , the classified ads of the chasseur français, collected by the artist, give way to soft and raw language, where the quest for love is read with humor. Finally, this journey is interrupted at the château Borély , facing the harbor of Marseille, Istanbul residents are filmed as they discover for the first time the infinite expanse of the sea.
Des habitants d’Istanbul sont filmés alors qu’ils découvrent pour la première fois cette étendue infinie qu’est la mer.
