Press Release 2013/04/12

Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time
March 20 (Wednesday) – June 30 (Sunday), 2013
The Hara Museum is proud to present a solo exhibition by the French artist Sophie Calle. This exhibition by one of France’s
leading contemporary artists consists of two parts. The Last Image (2010) is an installation that weaves together text andphotographs taken by the artist about people who have lost the power of sight. Voir la mer (See the sea) (2011) captures onfilm the expression of persons seeing the ocean for the first time. To the sound of waves, Calle's installations quietly
contemplate questions that she has been exploring since her work The Blind in 1986: What is beauty? What does it mean tosee? One possible answer provided by a blind man was the spark that propelled the artist to ponder these questions: "Themost beautiful thing I've ever seen is the sea."

Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, color photograph©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

Calle is largely known for her highly narrative artwork incorporating both photographs and text. She has held solo
exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, Centre Pompidou and other major museums throughout the world, and has
represented her country at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and other international art events.
In work revolving around intimate relations with others, Calle weaves together fact and fiction in ways that are fantastic andconstantly surprising. And yet the themes which she addresses - identity, communication, memory, perception - are alluniversal in nature. Fourteen years ago at the Hara Museum, many viewers were moved by Exquisite Pain (1999), anexhibition that incorporated beautiful photographs and embroidered text in a tale about emotional healing through theexchange of heartbreaking experiences with others.
The current exhibition presents Calle's most recent works on vision and perception, subjects that she has explored for manyyears. Consisting of two parts, The Last Image and Voir la mer, it is a show that caused a stir when exhibited for the firsttime in Istanbul at the Sabanci Museum (2011). Both are being presented in Japan for the first time. Also included is a
special collaborative piece featuring an image from the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes series.
A related exhibition of selected works from the Hara Museum Collection will be on view at Hara Museum ARC (the Hara
Museum's annex in Shibukawa, Gunma) and a film screening and talk by the artist at the Institut Français du Japon-Tokyowill also be held.

Press Release 2013/04/12

Exhibition Details
Title: Sophie Calle, For the Last and First Time
Dates: March 20 (Wednesday) - June 30 (Sunday), 2013
Place: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art 4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001
Tel: 03-3445-0651 E-mail: info@haramuseum.or.jp Website: http://www.haramuseum.or.jp Mobile site: http://mobile.haramuseum.or.jp
Blog: http://www.art-it.asia/u/HaraMuseum Twitter: http://twitter.com/haramuseum (in Japanese only / account name: @haramuseum)

Organized by: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Under the auspices of: Embassy of France in Japan/Institut Français du Japon
Supported by: Institut Français du Japon
Cooperation provided by: Samsung Electronics Japan, Gallery Koyanagi
Hours: 11:00 am - 5:00 pm, Wednesdays until 8:00 pm (except March 20) (last entry 30 minutes before closing)Closed: Mondays (open on April 29, May 6), April 30, May 7
Admission: General 1,000 yen; Students 700 yen (high school and university) or 500 yen (elementary and junior high); Freefor Hara Museum members, students through high school every Saturday during the school term; 100 yen discount perperson for groups of 20 or more; a 100 yen discount with the Hara Museum ARC ticket.
Directions: 5 minutes by taxi or 15 minutes on foot from JR Shinagawa Station (Takanawa exit); or from the same station
take the Tan No.96 bus, get off at the first stop (Gotenyama), and walk 3 minutes.

Related Exhibition and Events:
Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle and Miranda July from the Hara Museum Collection
March 16 (Saturday) - June 26 (Wednesday), 2013
Hara Museum ARC Galleries A, B and C (Contemporary Art)
*Exquisite Pain by Sophie Calle will be on view.
Bus Tours to Hara Museum ARC
Bus tours from Tokyo to Hara Museum ARC will be conducted during the exhibition Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle andMiranda July from the Hara Museum Collection.
Date: April 20 (Saturday), May 18 (Saturday) and June 15 (Saturday)
Sophie Calle Talk and Film Screening
Date: March 16 (Saturday), 2013 16:00 ~Place: Espace Images, Institut Français du Japon-Tokyo
Sophie Calle Documentary to be Screening
The documentary Sophie Calle: Untitled will be screened every Wednesday evening from 17:00 until 20:00 at the Hall. The
documentary will be screened three times in a loop.
Sophie Calle: Untitled (Collection Empreintes)(2012) / Director: Victoria Clay Mendoza / Producer: FOLAMOUR/Duration: 52 minutes
Lecture by Yukio Kondo (Art critic and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University)
Date: May 12 (Sunday) 15:00 - 16:30
Lecture by Momoko Matsuzaki (Radio Scriptwriter)
Date: May 29 (Wednesday) 18:00 - 19:30
Lecture by Aomi Okabe (Art critic / Curator)
Sophie Calle's Art and the Rules of the Game: Together with the Novels of Paul Auster, Maha Harada and Others
Date: June 30 (Sunday) 15:00 - 16:30

Press Release 2013/04/12

Exquisite Pain (to be exhibited at Hara Museum ARC)
Viewers in Japan may remember Exquisite Pain, Sophie Calle's solo exhibition held at the Hara Museum fourteen years ago.
In part one of that show (Countdown), letters to her most beloved person and photographs were used to relate the story ofthe worse day of her life. Part two (Countup) was the story of her gradual recovery, which she achieved by sharing her storyof hurt with other people and then listening in turn to their stories about the worse experience of their lives. These manystories - of lost love, of lost eyesight, of the birth of a crippled child - were embroidered with black thread onto white sheetsthat were hung on the gallery walls. The unfolding of this part of her life and her encounter with the lives of others
undoubtedly touched the hearts of many viewers. The fuzzy distinction, however, between fact and fiction that runs throughher work underscores the danger of unquestioning belief.
Who Is Sophie Calle?
Sophie Calle is a French contemporary artist who has won fame largely for herhighly narrative and often controversial work composed of photographs andlanguage. For the project The Sleepers (1979), Calle photographed andinterviewed 24 strangers whom she had invited to come to her home and sleep inher bed. For The Hotel (1981), Calle worked as a chambermaid at a hotel inVenice where she photographed the rooms of the hotel guests. The Address Book(1983) refers to an address book found by the artist. Calling the people listed inthe book, Calle conducted interviews about the owner and then published them
© Yves Geantin the French daily newspaper Libération. These projects, including those made during the 1990s such as True Stories andSuite Venitienne, were intriguing mixtures of fact and fiction. During this time, she also began working on a series about
persons without sight, beginning with The Blind. It was a profound examination into the nature of sight and perception,
which lie at the very foundation of art.
Calle′s doings as a filmmaker and other aspects of her lifestyle inspired the author Paul Auster to use her as themodel for a fictional character named Maria Turner in his novel Leviathan. Calle in turn assumed the personae ofMaria Turner in a work she created called Double Game (1998). These works, which push the boundaries ofcontemporary art, remain a focus of much attention today.
Calle was born in Paris in 1953. In her late-teens, she left home to wander for seven years, returning to Paris at theage of 26. From that time, she began creating, and from 1980, she began to exhibit. She has held solo exhibitions atmajor museums such as the Tate Gallery (1998) and the Centre Pompidou (2003).
In Japan, she has held several solo exhibitions, including Exquisite Pain at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyoand an exhibition at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2003). Her work has also appeared in such groupexhibitions as Beyond the photographic frame / 11 recent works (1990, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki) and Images in Transition:
Photographic Representations in the Eighties (1990, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto National Museum ofModern Art, Tokyo). She currently lives in Malakoff on the outskirts of Paris.

Press Release 2013/04/12

Images for Publication

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*Please include the following credit along with the captions below. Please do not trim or alter the images. Putting text over the images isprohibited.
[1][2][3] The Last Image (detail), 2010, color photograph ©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo*[1] and [2] form a pair. When shown together, please align the respective horizons as shown above. Use of single images is allowed.
[4][5][6] Voir la mer (See the sea) (detail), 2011, video installation ©ADAGP, Paris 2013 Courtesy Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong &Paris – Gallery
Koyanagi, Tokyo

For publicity materials, please contact the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (Watanabe, Kajita) by telephone or e-mail.
Tel: +81-3-3280-0679 Fax: +81-3-5791-7630 E-mail: press@haramuseum.or.jp
4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001