Sophie Calle discusses provocative art ahead of major UK exhibition
French conceptual artist Sophie Calle discusses the intimate, often unsettling methods that have shaped her career, including documenting hotel rooms and other people’s lives. At 72, Calle is preparing to open her first major UK exhibition in nearly two decades, while reflecting on the choices and controversies surrounding her work.
French conceptual artist Sophie Calle is preparing to open her first major UK exhibition in nearly two decades.
Calle, 72, has built her career since the early 1980s through work that combines photography, writing and investigations into private lives. Her projects have included inviting strangers to sleep in her bed, posing as a hotel maid to document guests’ belongings and contacting people listed in a lost address book.
In an interview, Calle discussed her interest in absence and said she had no regrets about making work she described as cruel. She also spoke from the Paris apartment where she has lived for almost 50 years.
THE QUESTIONS THIS EVENT LEAVES BEHIND
What boundaries should artists face when their work uses other people’s private lives?
Who has the power to consent when an artist documents people who are not the primary audience?
Would the same methods be judged differently if the subjects controlled how the work was presented?
What obligations, if any, should galleries have toward people whose experiences become art?
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GLOBAL CURIOSITY MAP · AUGUST 2026