THE SLEEPERS (LES DORMEURS)
SOPHIE CALLE, 1979
Sophie Calle comes back to Paris in 1979 depressed, untethered, twenty-five years old, and decides the answer might be: twenty-nine people sleeping in her bed. This is The Sleepers. Sophie Calle. 1979. And not in some dreamy, romantic, bohemian way. In shifts. Eight hours each. Like a factory. Like visiting hours. Bakers from local bakeries. A babysitter from an agency. A woman she met at the market. Her mother. Her younger brother, who showed up with pajamas and a toothbrush. And the friend he brought with him. For eight days, they came and went. She photographed them awake and asleep. She fed them. She gave them questionnaires so long one person fell asleep answering. She did not sleep. That's the piece. Because this is not really about twenty-nine people sleeping. It's about one person building a structure because her life, at that moment, didn't have one. She'd been following strangers through Paris because their days had a shape and hers didn't. A man named Henri B mentioned he was going to Venice. She followed him there for two weeks. Wore disguises. Called hotels. Which is either the start of a major art career or a beautifully organized personal crisis. The same instinct is all over this work. You sleep here. At this hour. In this bed. I watch. I document. I ask questions. We repeat. She takes loneliness and turns it into procedure. And the room does one more thing: it puts you in her role. You're not the sleeper. You're the one standing there, looking at strangers asleep, trying to figure out what exactly you're seeing. Care. Control. Voyeurism. Self-preservation. Probably all of them at once. Calle later said her work became art the day it was shown on the wall. The husband of one of the sleepers was an art critic. He saw the project and invited her to exhibit. Her career started here. Twenty-nine people slept. One person stayed awake. That was the artist.