“Flamboyant, imperious, with a deep belief in the redemptive power of art, Gardner built intimate galleries for her masterworks, each room extolling a different theme, each one its own creative stew. There’s a quiet, calming Chinese Loggia; a Gothic Room that recalls a medieval chapel; a Yellow Room lined with pastel-toned paintings by J. M. W. Turner and Edgar Degas. In her will, Gardner forbade any changes to her museum. She wanted her work of art to always remain her work of art. Nothing could be added or taken away. Not a Chippendale chair, not a Rembrandt canvas, not a bamboo window shade. Everything must remain in the same Victorian patchwork of wood-paneled corners and draped alcoves, or the trustees would be required to sell off the collection land donate the profits to Harvard University. And from Gardner’s death in 1924 until that March 1990 evening, it was a wish faithfully kept.”
— The Gardner Heist, by Ulrich Boser, Harper Paperback, 2010
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is opening an exhibition titled Last Seen by French artist Sophie Calle on view from October 24, 2013 through March 3, 2014. The exhibition will include Calle’s 1991 Gardner-inspired work on display for the first time at the Gardner, as well as new work created in 2012.
The 14 photographic and text based works in Last Seen consist of two distinct series. The first, created in 1991, titled Last Seen… is a series of photographs and texts created shortly after the 1990 theft during which 13 objects were stolen from the Museum. The second series, titled What Do You See?, includes new work which Calle made in 2012 at the Museum while revisiting the earlier project.
What Do You See? (Vermeer, The Concert), 2013; © 2013 Sophie Calle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of Sophie Calle, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
“It’s a thrill to welcome Sophie Calle to the Gardner Museum for this exciting exhibition,” said Anne Hawley, Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “She is a major artistic force and her exhibition will pave the way for an exciting fall and winter season of contemporary art at the Gardner Museum.”
In 1990, during an exhibition of Calle’s work at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Calle was interviewed for a Parkett magazine article by Sheena Wagstaff. At Calle’s request the interview took place at the Gardner in front of Jan Vermeer’s 1658 – 60 painting The Concert, one of Calle’s favorite paintings. Later that March, the painting became one of the thirteen works stolen from the Museum. Wagstaff later jokingly hinted that perhaps Calle was responsible for the theft. This suggestion spurred Calle to consider creating a project focused on the Gardner’s stolen works.
While standing in front of the empty spaces on the Museum walls where works were once hung, Calle asked curators, guards, conservators, and other Museum staff members what they remembered of the missing pieces. Calle used text from the interviews and the photographic images to create a visual meditation on absence and memory, as well as reflection on the emotional power works of art hold on their viewers.
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