Never before published in its entirety in English, The Address Book is a key and controversial work in Sophie Calle’s oeuvre. Having found a lost address book on the street in Paris, Calle copied the pages before returning it anonymously to its owner. She then embarked on a search to come to know this stranger by contacting listed individuals—in essence, following him through the map of his acquaintances. Her written accounts of these encounters with friends, family and colleagues—juxtaposed with Calle’s photographs—originally appeared as serial in the newspaper Libération over the course of one month in 1983. As the entries accumulate, so do the vivid impressions of the address book’s owner, Pierre D., while also suggesting ever more complicated stories as information is gifted, parsed, and withheld by the people she encounters.hen Pierre D. learned about the work and its appearance in the newspaper, he threatened to sue (and demanded that Libérationpublish nude photographs of Calle as a reciprocal invasion of privacy). Calle agreed not to republish the work until after his death. Part conceptual art, part character study, part confession, part essay, The Address Book is, above all, a prism through which desire and the elusory, persona and identity, the private and the public, knowledge and the unknown are refracted in luminous and provocative ways. The Address Book can be purchased here.
