I have long had enormous respect and love for Sophie Calle's work. It is brilliant and bold and human and illuminating. She also has an incredible way of turning pain into art. In her 2007 piece, "Take Care of Yourself," she turned the pain of a break-up email into a wonderful, searing piece of work (as an aside, Calle herself describes the break-up email as "neither better nor worse" than other break-up letters--but the Guardian has termed it "hideously self-absorbed"). For the piece, Calle asked 107 professionals to interpret her ex's breakup email according to their job, and photographed them reading and interpreting the letter. As Angelique Chisafis summarizes,
"The ex's grammar and syntax have been torn apart by a copy editor, his manners rubbished by an etiquette consultant and his lines pored over by Talmudic scholars. He has been re-ordered by a crossword-setter, evaluated by a judge, shot up by a markswoman, second-guessed by a chess player and performed by actress Jeanne Moreau. A forensic psychiatrist decided he was a "twisted manipulator"."
Calle stated in an interview that her inspiration for the piece was the last line of his letter, which became the title of the piece; "He said 'take care of yourself', he knows how I take care of myself, he knows what my method is."You slay, Calle.
