True Stories
Georgia Tooke - 12th September 2022
This “Notes On…” is gonna look a lil different. I’m talking about a book I read instead of a show I visited. So it’ll kinda be a reflection on the time i spent with the stories inside, as well as my own stories that I connected to the book; after all it is called “True Stories”.
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For the past three years, Shae and I have spent our birthdays (like everything else - meetings, catch-ups, sometimes making dinner or brushing our teeth) over Zoom. We’ll sit in front of our computers, one of us with a package waiting to be carefully cut open with an exacto knife. Except it’s not our actual birthday because the post is so slow that it’s a couple weeks later. But when the day comes, and a package with the other person’s handwriting on it that’s traveled over 7000 km to arrive on our doorstep, we can’t contain our excitement. One of the gifts Shae gave me this year, that I think we were both the most excited about, was a small book with a unique shape - a bit smaller than a standard letter envelope, but portrait orientation. It was a hard cover entitled “True Stories” by the artist Sophie Calle. The photo was of Calle, eyes cast down, wearing a black sleeveless turtleneck and a skirt that had a realistic cat’s face placed over her lower abdomen. Her hands lay flat on her skirt, thumbs and index fingers creating a triangle to frame the cat’s face. When I opened the cover it contained a small handwritten note at the top right hand corner:
For you on your birthday darling Georgia
Shae 2022
The contents of the book contain very short stories, like tiny life vignettes; each no longer than a page with an accompanying photo. Each small story gives us an insight into Calle’s personal life, her history, her art - the experiences that made her who she is.
We’re both familiar with Sophie Calle and have loved her deeply intimate and voyeuristic works for a few years now, so holding a book by her in my hands felt so special. Shae confessed she couldn’t help herself and read the book before sending it to me, which just made me love it more that this could now be a shared experience.
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Image credit: Tate
The first work that introduced me to Sophie Calle was called “The Hotel” made back in 1981. She took a job as a maid in Venice, and over the course of three weeks (camera and tape recorder hidden in her cart) she took photos and notes on everything she saw in each room she was tasked with cleaning. Luggage, personal belongings, stains, trash, products, magazines, lingerie, wrinkles in an unmade bed. The type of snooping around that’s almost taboo, but I think every person harbours a morbid curiosity (or for Calle, a morbid fascination) for what people leave behind, the impact we make when we think we have a veil of privacy. I don’t think she could get away with this now. I think with how much surveillance we live with now (voluntary and not), the work would feel invasive in a way that’d be so much more detrimental… I actually have a lot of thoughts on this matter and might write an entire “Notes On…” about it… Regardless, I loved this series so much that it inspired me to be a housekeeper for a summer - hoping to stumble across the same treasures and insight into people’s lives. I was unfortunately mistaken because in my case, I worked at a time-share and the rooms were almost always left bare by the time I got to them. The job caused me to spiral, cleaning variations of the same rooms, several times a day, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 4 months. I don’t see it as a waste though, I learned almost anything can be cleaned as long as you have the right products and elbow grease. I kept one of my stiff navy blue uniforms so if I ever have something heinous to clean at home, I put on the uniform and cosplay as a cleaner in my own home.
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After reading the first several stories, I wondered (almost guiltily) if they were in fact all true stories. What if they weren’t? It made me think of how we can play with the idea of a near fictional reality so long as it’s believable fiction. What makes something believable? Someone telling us so? I mean that’s what the book is called, isn’t it? “True Stories”? Some of the stories I read I thought “why would someone make this up?” Only because it is just above mundane, just a bit ridiculous, or just out of reach of a regular experience. Although as I read on and finished the book, I’ve decided that these are Calle’s true stories even though I don’t have any authority on the matter to say one way or another.
It also made me wonder what stories I would include if I compiled true stories about my life into a small pocket sized book…
This style of storytelling reminded me of the opening monologue of the French movie, “Amelie”. The main character, Amelie, was narrating a voice over, introducing herself and surrounding characters with odd details that gave you an intimate insight on them. For example “[Amelie’s mother] doesn't like to have her fingers all wrinkled by hot water. [...] She likes the outfits of the ice-skaters on TV”. We watched it in grade 12 English class and then were asked to write our own personal version of this monologue. I wish I still had my assignment somewhere… It was one of the writing pieces I was most proud of in high school.
Out of the 13 stories I put a bright pink sticky tab on, I’m only going to share two of Calle’s stories that really stood out to me. The first was entitled “ The Razor Blade” on page 26. I was reading the book on the way to my hometown for my sister in-law’s wedding. I was in the car with my husband and our two besties / roommates. While waiting to board the ferry to leave the island, I decided to read this one out loud to the car.
“I posed nude every day for a drawing class, from 9:00am to 12 noon. And each day, a man who was always seated in the front row, on my far left, drew me for three hours. At noon he would take a razor blade out of his pocket and compulsively slash the drawing he had made. I would watch. Then he would leave the room. The drawing would remain on the table as evidence. This was repeated every day for twelve days. On the thirteenth day, I didn’t go to work.”
Before the words had even had a chance to settle, my roommate flippantly said “I don’t get it”. The rest of us just stared at him for a moment. I thought: what is there to get?
The next story is called “Obituary” on page 103.
“Monique wanted to see the sea one last time. On Tuesday, January 31, we went to Cabourg.
The last journey. The next day, "so my feet look nice when I go": the last pedicure. She read Ravel by Jean Echenoz. The last book. A man she had long admired but never met came to her bedside. Making a friend for the last time. She organized the funeral ceremony: her last party. Final preparations: she chose her funeral dress-navy blue with a white pattern - a photograph showing her making a face for the tombstone, and her epitaph: I'm getting bored already! She wrote a last poem, for her burial. She chose Montparnasse cemetery as her final address. She didn't want to die. She said this was the first time in her life she didn't mind waiting. She shed her last tears. The days before her death, she kept repeating: "It's odd. It's so stupid." She listened to the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622. For the last time. Her last wish: to leave with the music of Mozart in her ears. Her last request: for us not to worry. "Ne vous faites pas de souci." Souci was her last word. On March 15, 2006, at 3:00 p.m., the last smile. The last breath, somewhere between 3:02 and 3:13. Impossible to capture.”
This was a beautiful meditation on death and dying… If we knew death was coming - how would we prepare? What would you want your “lasts” to be? We might think of last meal and last words, but what about the last song you’d listen to? The last hug you’d give? Where would the last outing be or the last view you’d want to see?
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Reading about Sophie Calle’s life, it reminds me of my final thoughts about my Notes On… Growing Freedom (the Yoko Ono retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery). Both of these artists have lived artfully. What that means to me is not just creating work in a studio and showing that work in a gallery but rather having no separation between life and art. The two are so intertwined that they cannot be pulled apart and compartmentalized. It makes me wonder if that’s what propels artists to become great… it’s as if there’s no other option for them, because art is their life and vice versa.
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I’m also going to shamelessly plug Jiggle n Juice’s very first artist residency program! The prompt “Tell us a secret…” was inspired by Shae’s Notes On… BLOB as well as this book. If you’re reading or listening to these notes before September 18 2022 please be sure to apply!! And if you’re listening after that date, look forward to the release of the Prickly Pear publication later this year. Thank you for reading!! xoxo