Sophie Calle's Rachel Monique tells the story of Monique Szyndler, Calle's mother who died in 2007, through diary excerpts and photographs selected by the artist from family albums. Described as "haunting" and "a mystery novel that tirelessly searches for a missing person," the Rachel Monique project honours a daughter's complicated relationship with her mother and the artist's deeply felt grief." She was called successively Rachel, Monique, Szyndler, Calle, Pagliero, Gonthier, Sindler," reads the first lines of Rachel Monique, embroidered on the cover. "My mother liked people to talk about her. Her life did not appear in my work, and that annoyed her. When I set up my camera at the bottom of the bed in which she lay dying -- fearing that she would pass away in my absence, whereas I wanted to be present and hear her last words -- she exclaimed, ‘Finally.'" This volume, presenting Calle's installation of Rachel Monique at the Palais de Tokyo, was designed in close collaboration with the artist. The cover text is embroidered to create a precious object, and all of the texts relating to the installation are beautifully embossed.This highly personal and moving book is intimate and universal in its expressions of mourning and memory.
208 pages, 24.1 x 17.1 cm, hardcover, Editions Xavier Barral (Paris)