Sophie Calle | L'homme au carnet

Sophie Calle
L'homme au carnet
Montreal, Canada: Aubes gallery, 1989
10 pp., 38 x 10 cm., newspaper
Edition of 200

In the early nineteen-eighties, Sophie Calle found an address book on the street in Paris, belonging to a filmmaker/scriptwriter named Pierre D. Before mailing it back him, she photocopied the contents and proceeded to call every contact listed in the book, and interrogated them about the owner.

“I will try to discover who he is without ever meeting him, and I will try to produce a portrait of him over an undetermined length of time that will depend on the willingness of his friends to talk about him—and on the turns taken by the events,” she wrote at the time.

Some friends reacted "violently" to being approached ("I’ll have no part in this! It’s an outrage!"), while others shared intimate recollections (see excerpts, below). Calle includes these reminiscences alongside her stories about meeting up with these various friends and acquaintances. Her findings were published in the newspaper Libération between August 2nd and September 4th, 1983.

Pierre D threatened to sue and demanded that the newspaper print nude photographs of Calle as a retaliatory invasion of privacy. Eventually Calle agreed not to republish the work until after D's death, which resulted in the 2012 publication by Siglio Press.

This facsimile of the newspaper pages was published by the Montreal gallery Aubes, twenty-three years prior, presumably breaking the conditions of the agreement. The reprint is valued at approximately $500.

Some excerpts:

“I know Pierre very well. I met him in the late 60’s at a science fiction festival in Trieste. He was already in love with Italy. I was fascinated by his Harry Langdon, Jacques Tati side. We became friends.” Enzo U.’s house became a base for Pierre’s annual vacations in Rome. “He represented the burlesque and the romantic for me; he was the first of the new romantics. Then his image became more cultural. He started writing film criticism and scripts. His personality developed what could be called a ‘dirty side.’"

I tell him the story. He says, “Do you know who I am? I’m a public personality! If you had called me to talk to me or to get to know me, I would have agreed to meet with you. I started from scratch too. I know what it’s like to start out. But you’re using a roundabout method. I don’t like that…”

"Physically, he’s gorgeous. Thirtyish, white hair. A way of dressing with a certain proportion of intentional clownishness that he totally accepts.”

"He is extremely intelligent. He is a real character. But he did not know how to ‘sell’ himself. It is as a character that he failed.”

“Pierre is above all a brilliant intellectual who doesn’t show off. Modest. Always dressed in the Barbès style, with big collars on his shirts and trousers that are wide at the bottoms. The way he chooses to dress has nothing to do with what’s going on in his head . . . ”

“He loves food. He always finishes everything on his plate. It’s not a question of hunger—just a quirk of behavior. Another thing that is typical Pierre: If he meets with you or has dinner with you, he calls you the next day to thank you, to say how nice it was. When he arrives at someone’s home, he behaves apologetically. For the first thirty seconds, you feel he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He performs an almost obsequious little ritual: ‘Excuse me, are you sure I’m not disturbing you?’ When he leaves a message on your answering machine, it’s always very confused. He’s not good at condensing ideas. He has to call back several times.”