Sophie Calle | Bronx

Sophie Calle   

Bronx

Paris, France: Item Editions, 2002

unpaginated., 30.5 x 24.8 cm., loose leaves

Edition of 250 signed and numbered copies [+ 20 AP]

A project completed by the general public in both solicited and unsolicited ways, Bronx was the first exhibited work by French artist Sophie Calle. Produced over forty years ago, in 1980, the work was part of a city-wide group exhibition titled “Une Idée en L’Air.” 

Calle approached strangers on the streets of New York's South Bronx and asked them to take her to the one place they would most remember if they ever relocated away from the area. The resulting work, which was originally titled Waiting for People to Come to Fashion MODA and Asking them to Take me Wherever They Want in the South Bronx, featured unsentimental portrait photographs and texts about the chosen places. 

Calle was taken to mostly private places with some personal significance, like a grade school classroom or gardens, Yankee Stadium. One participant brought her to a borough that the Pope had blessed the year prior. A man took her to a bank, saying, "I used to have a bank account. I would like another one.”

“The day before the opening I hung the photos and the texts on the wall," Calle later recounted. "That night, an unexpected and providential collaborator broke into the gallery and covered every possible surface with graffiti.” She decided that having the works tagged made them "much better" in the end. 

The series - still bearing the graffiti marks - now resides in the permanent collection of the Bronx Museum. 

In 2002 Item Editions produced a bilingual reprint of the original 1980 work  - a debossed leather cover housing nine prints. It is valued at around $500 US.