Lecture: Sophie Calle: Because-The Blind

Matthew Witkovsky, Sandor Chair and Curator of Photography and Media, provides an overview of the exhibition Sophie Calle: Because-The Blind.
In 1986, French artist Sophie Calle introduced herself to people attending an institute for the blind in Paris and asked if she might speak with them on the subject of beauty. Calle photographed each person she interviewed and assembled photographs as well as one to three scenes of things they named as beautiful. The result was The Blind, a series of 23 conversations and more than 80 images related to questions of vision, art, and recollections of private life.
In 2020, the Art Institute acquired the only complete version of The Blind in English-the one first shown more than 30 years earlier in Los Angeles. Alongside this classic early work, the Art Institute presentation includes examples from Calle’s recent series, Because, in which she details her personal reasons for making certain photographs over the years.