Take Care of Yourself

Take Care of Yourself is the book of Sophie Calle’s project for the French pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, in which 107 women respond to a breakup e-mail she received from her lover.

The e-mail arrived on the day the affair ended. Calle asked each woman to read it through her own profession: a writer comments on the style, a judge passes sentence, a lawyer defends him, a psychoanalyst studies his psychology, a mediator looks for a way to reconciliation, a proofreader edits the text literally. Performers including Nathalie Dessay, Laurie Anderson and Carla Bruni acted it out. Calle filmed the singers and actresses and photographed the other contributors, so each printed interpretation is paired with at least one portrait of its author. The book itself carries a stamped pink metallic cover, changes of paper, bound-in booklets, green envelopes holding DVDs and Braille endpapers. Dis Voir and Actes Sud published it in 2007.

Calle was born in 1953. Her work combines conceptual art with Oulipo-like constraints and investigative methods, in books, photography, film, writing, performance and installation. In 2023 she staged the solo exhibition À toi de faire, ma mignonne at the Musée national Picasso-Paris.