Sophie Calle

Begründung der Jury

★★★★
France /// Frankreich
★★★★

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso, the Musée Picasso Paris invited Sophie Calle to take over the Hôtel Salé. Her radical yet playful response forms the basis of Picalso, a publication conceived as an artist’s book that extends the exhibition into an intimate, tactile experience.
The carefully designed book mirrors Calle’s characteristic storytelling. It adopts a compact format and alternates between Bible paper and heavier creative stocks, creating shifts in opacity, weight, and rhythm. An American-style dust jacket made of brown wrapping paper becomes distinctive through the contrast of white UV-varnished title typography. Beneath it, a softcover in rough cardboard carries bold red type running across front and back cover: the captions themselves become the cover image.
Inside, the design is deliberately heterogeneous. An essay recontextualizes Calle’s encounters with Picasso, revisiting her recurring themes of memory, absence, and disappearance. Blue paper for this text subtly evokes Picasso’s Blue Period, Vignettes interrupt the text; generous space around the text block allows the narratives to breathe. The typesetting is strikingly idiosyncratic, reinforcing the fragmentary, diaristic structure of the book. In addition, various types of paper display certificates, lists of “rendezvous,” and images. A folded insert with a poster referencing Guernica extends the reading experience into the realm of the collectible.
The sophistication of Picalso ultimately reveals itself in the interplay. Every material and typographic decision feels intentional. The result is a publication in which concept and design are inseparable – an artist’s book that transforms homage into a layered, materially articulate narrative.