Her photographs show the back of a raincoated man as he travels
through the winding Venetian streets, a surreal and striking
backdrop to her internalised mission. The very beauty of her
surroundings has a filmic quality, intensifying the thriller-esque
narrative of her project.
*Another Magazine*
The result is this thrilling book, first published in 1983 and long
out of print, now newly reissued in an understated English edition,
blending matter-of-fact daily text entries with Calle’s elusive
black and white photography.For Calle, the idea is to push the
bounds of propriety, to go where one wouldn’t ordinarily go. This
is — have no doubt — an assault on privacy, autonomy, undertaken
without permission and enacted for the public, a public with which
the subject may or may not wish to engage.That’s one of the
challenges of her work, the discomfort we feel as she crosses the
line.
*Los Angeles Times*
In 1978, when Calle was 25 years old, she returned to Paris after
seven years of roaming across North and South America. She
struggled to re-adapt to fashionable Parisian society, and after
months of reclusiveness, decided to follow people in the
streets—not because they particularly interested her, but for the
pleasure of following them. "I just had to choose a person and
follow him and that way my day would simply drift by," she said to
Another Magazine. This makes Calle sound like a flaneur, but when
she followed a man from Paris to Venice, armed with a blonde wig
and a camera, she produced Suite Venitienne (1980), which was
quickly noticed and celebrated by both French and international
critics.
*Vice Magazine*
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