View of Sophie Calle's installation Rachel, Monique, 2013. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery.
Sophie Calle’s latest show, dedicated to her late mother, opens with a pair of letters Calle exchanged with fellow French Conceptualist Daniel Buren. In the letters, Calle asks Buren’s opinion on whether or not it would be appropriate to show a 2007 film of her mother in a commercial gallery. (Buren advises against it; the video will be shown at an Upper East Side church in May 2014 instead.) The rest of the work in the ongoing project Rachel includes photos, text pieces, sculptures and videos—by turns sentimental, journalistic and antagonistic—probing Calle’s relationship with her mother.