At the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, French artist, Sophie Calle presented for public consumption a
starkly simple yet elegant work entitled Pas Pu Saisir La Mort. The work was not only a comprehensive
investigation of the Biennale theme for that year of capturing a fleeting moment in life but was also an
ethically challenging and confrontational piece. Calle chose to display a video loop from the final moments
of her mother Monique Sindler's life. As the title in a childlike manner informs the viewer, the subject of the
work is Calle's inability to physically comprehend this moment. She, to add in the poignantly missing
referent to the English translation of the title, “couldn't capture death”. Calle prompts the audience not only
to watch but to actively look for the universally ungraspable moment of Monique's passing.
Pas Pu Saisir La Mort is unique piece which both characterises Calle's work while also marking a
departure from her normal style of working. It raises challenging issues of the ethical responsibilities of the
contemporary art Biennale and of a more moral nature for the audience by placing them in the intimate role
of voyeur. At the centre of aesthetic theory and within contemporary art writing the idea of a connection to
universal concepts or notions of an underlying humanity within art is referenced, debated and negated. I
believe in Pas Pu Saisir La Mort Calle engages with this discussion through foregrounding the idea of the
contemporary sublime and re-evaluates art's connection to modernist universals as illuminated though the
recent work of Thierry De Duve in particular his concept of 'nous voici' or work with speaks to the 'we' of
humanity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/4831 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Thorn, Sophie Alexandra |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. School of Humanities |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Sophie Alexandra Thorn, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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