Signed; Sophie Calle - Rachel, Monique… - 2012

“She went by many names: Rachel, Monique, Szyndler, Calle, Pagliero, Gonthier, Sindler. My mother liked people talking about her. Her life doesn’t appear in my work. That annoyed her. When I placed my camera at the foot of the bed where she lay dying, because I was afraid she would expire in my absence, when I wanted to be there, to hear her last word, she exclaimed: ‘Finally.’” Sophie Calle recounts Monique’s life through excerpts from personal journals and photographs from family albums, and presents her installation created at the Palais de Tokyo in homage to her mother, who died in 2007.

But this book is above all a true object, conceived in collaboration with the artist. The cover text is embroidered, making it a precious object, and all the texts related to the installation are embossed to evoke the texture of some of Sophie Calle’s works. This is a very personal and moving work, and at the same time a reflection on death, which touches each of us.