The Sleepers
The exhibit that made the most lasting impression on me last week at the MOMA was Sophie Calle's The Sleepers.Here's a description from the MOMA's page for the exhbit:
Sophie Calle probes the boundaries between public and private life. In 1979 she began following people around Paris to give structure to her days. For The Sleepers, one of her earliest projects combining image and text, she shifted this practice of surveillance from the street to her bedroom. Over eight days, Calle invited 29 people—friends, acquaintances, and strangers—to sleep in her bed in consecutive eight-hour shifts, keeping it continuously occupied. When someone failed to arrive, Calle hired a bedsitter or filled the spot herself. She photographed the sleepers at regular intervals, took notes on their gestures and habits, and served meals and changed sheets. “I have an attraction, not to know somebody’s life,” she remarked, “but to know details, for example, which way he sleeps, on which side of the bed.”
Sophie Calle probes the boundaries between public and private life. In 1979 she began following people around Paris to give structure to her days. For The Sleepers, one of her earliest projects combining image and text, she shifted this practice of surveillance from the street to her bedroom. Over eight days, Calle invited 29 people—friends, acquaintances, and strangers—to sleep in her bed in consecutive eight-hour shifts, keeping it continuously occupied. When someone failed to arrive, Calle hired a bedsitter or filled the spot herself. She photographed the sleepers at regular intervals, took notes on their gestures and habits, and served meals and changed sheets. “I have an attraction, not to know somebody’s life,” she remarked, “but to know details, for example, which way he sleeps, on which side of the bed.”
It's an oddball, creative idea, and her execution was creative as well. She took roughly five photos of each person, usually while they were sleeping, and along with the photos was a bit of typewritten text about what they said and did while they were there.
It doesn't sound like anything special, but with three sleepers a day over eight days, and four to six pictures of each person, she wound up with enough photos to ring three walls of a long room. The cumulative effect become more and more pronounced as I went along the walls, studying the images and text.
This was my favorite one, and it was the last one in the exhibit:
Then I accompany Daniel D. to the door. I thank him for coming. He answers: "In the end all these people disgust you profoundly. Thanks for having been able to stand us."
No notes.
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