Sophie Calle

In spring 2027, De Pont Museum will present a major exhibition of the French artist Sophie Calle (Paris, 1953). Calle is regarded as one of the most influential and pioneering artists of her generation. For five decades, she has explored fundamental questions about life and human emotion in her work – among them love, loss, guilt, fear and shame – with a sensibility that is at once conceptually rigorous and deeply poetic. Her works frequently combine photography and text, weaving austere visual records together with intimate narratives. Calle casts herself in a variety of roles – observer, investigator or protagonist – and transforms everyday situations into art projects that attempt to penetrate to the essence of people, relationships and places. Her work occupies the intersection of fact and fiction, the public and the private, distance and emotional involvement. 

In 2010, De Pont Museum presented Calle’s solo exhibition Talking to Strangers. Her work has been part of the museum’s collection ever since. The new exhibition builds on this and presents a selection of recent works not previously shown in the Netherlands. The exhibition has been developed in close collaboration with the artist, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Turner Contemporary. 

Portet Sophie Calle. Photo credit: Claire Dorn. Courtesy Perrotin, 2025