Sophie Calle: Something Missing?

Exhibition overview

For more than five decades, Calle has achieved international renown for addressing the big questions of human experience—from love, lossand longing, to guilt, fear and embarrassment—with equal parts poetry, wit, and conceptual rigour. Navigating public and private, control and chance, her works offer an irresistible glimpse into the innermost lives of friends, lovers, strangers—as well as that of Calle herself.

At the core of the exhibition is absence. As Calle has put it, it is ‘the things that are missing—my mother who is no longer here, a lover who leaves, an idea that doesn’t come' that drive her. Through her signature use of photography and text-based work and video installation, Calle assumes the roles of historian, sociologist, detective, philosopher and—above all—storyteller, pairing her own photographs with matter-of-fact first-person accounts.

Clarrie Wallis, Director of Turner Contemporary, said: 'Sophie Calle is one of the most distinctive artists of our time, whose work has influenced generations through its emotional honesty, conceptual precision and wit. We are thrilled to present her first institutional exhibition in the UK in over fifteen years, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the extraordinary breadth of her remarkable practice.'

The exhibition brings together significant works from across Calle’s career, including:

• The Blind (1986), in which people born without sight describe their idea of beauty.
• Voir la Mer (2011), a moving multi-channel video installation capturing the moment when individuals see the sea for the first time.
• Purloined (Turner) (1998–2013), developed from the memories of two JMW Turner paintings stolen while on loan from Tate.
• On the Hunt (2017–2024), a more-than-century-spanning exploration of romantic desire, tracing personal advertisements from 1895 through to contemporary Tinder messages.
• Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished (2023), a reflection on abandoned projects, unrealised ideas and artistic intention.

Together, these works offer a rare opportunity to experience the extraordinary breadth of Calle’s practice and her enduring influence on contemporary art.