Calle Crafts Art from Absence

French photographer Sophie Calle has returned to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to photograph the empty spaces left by the art thefts of March 18, 1990. “Sophie Calle: Last Seen,” is a study of the legacy left by the 13 stolen works and is on display in the Hostetter Gallery at the ISG from Oct. 24th to March 3rd. “Through [Calle’s works], we have found a way of dealing with the theft, which is like an open wound,” says Pieranna Cavalchini, Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art at the ISG.

Interestingly, “Last Seen” stems from Calle’s personal connection to the stolen pieces. One of Calle’s favorite works, “The Concert” by Jan Vermeer, was one of the works stolen in the 1990 raid, in which two men disguised at Boston police officers entered the museum, tied up the guards, and stole 13 pieces of art. After hearing about the disappearance of “The Concert,” Calle visited the museum to photograph the outcome of the robbery and to record the responses of those working at the ISG to the theft. Last year, the museum invited Calle to return and revisit the project, this time in response to the 1995 decision to re-hang the frames of the lost paintings, more distinctly marking their absence. In this more recent series, entitled “What Do You See?” Calle photographed the empty frames and interviewed staff and visitors’ responses to the question “What do you see?” to investigate the way in which the empty frames conveyed the significance of absence.

The exhibit is separated into two rooms, one of which displays the original “Last Seen…” images, the second of which exhibits the five photographs of her more recent project. While this is not the debut showing of either of these sets of photographs, this is the first time they have all be displayed together—made possible by the construction of the new wing of the museum in 2012.

Cavalchini and Anne Hawley, Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the ISG Museum, both believe the exhibit has a dual functionality: to conserve the memory of those stolen works, and to allow creativity and beauty to stem from the painful loss of the theft. While Cavalchini describes the project as a way to show what was in the frames and make sure they are not forgotten, Hawley perceives a more universal meaning. “Through these works, Sophie has demonstrated the power of art and the artist to heal,” she says.

Quotes from staff and visitors to the museum, recorded and edited by Calle, are displayed in frames next to the photographs. The responses shown alongside her original photographs describe the missing works and convey the loss and sadness of the museum staff; in her “What Do You See?” series, however, Calle extended her interviews to members of the public  and asked them what they saw without mentioning that the painting were missing. The anonymous responses she chose to display vary from poignant to almost comical: “This Rembrandt painting looks sort of like wallpaper,” one response reads.

This documentarian aspect to the project makes Calle seem a detective of sorts; however, Calle describes her work as not journalistic, but poetic. She selected and edited the responses she received, excluding those with similar sentiments in order to convey the variation of responses to the loss of the works. Since all responses are anonymous, there is no indication of whether, or to what extent, the artist may have edited the words of her interviewees, which the exhibition program describes as a key element to the work. “There is no knowing, in other words, where the border between truth and fiction lies in these projects,” it reads.

Her ability to manipulate the texts is the only real evidence of the artist’s hand in the project, since in neither series is there any indication as to how Calle herself responds to the loss. “If I wanted people to know what I see, I would have done that,” Calle says. “It’s not about me.”

The frames remain empty on the wall of the museum today in accordance with Isabella Stewart Gardner’s will, which states that none of the works may be moved from their original position. “But through this exhibit, [Calle has] brought new life to the missing works.” Cavalchini says. “The ISG is an institution that will frame absence.” Calle has turned this absence into a work of art in itself.