青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Because of this story of a passer-by
gushing at a baby in a stroller,
whose mother exclaims
“And you haven’t seen his picture!”
(from the cover)

Sophie Calle’s books Parce que (in French) and Because (in English) were originally published in 2018, in conjunction with her artwork series Parce que. The series featured photo frames each covered by a curtain embroidered with text explaining why she had taken the picture; gallerygoers first read the text, then lifted the cloth to find the photo and consider it vis-à-vis what the words had led them to envision. The publications, meanwhile, called on readers to peruse a text, then physically pull out a loose photograph from between the pages and reflect on its image—a highly experimental re-creation of the gallery experience in book form.

Created at the request of the artist herself, this edition brings the book experience to readers of Japanese for the first time. The volume offers the same content as the revised 2024 French and English editions—including the six new works added to those books—in a translation supervised by contemporary-art curator Okabe Aomi that brings Calle’s world to life in flowing language.

This is the Japanese edition of books originally published in France in 2018 and 2024 by Atelier EXB.

Born in France in 1953, Sophie Calle has been active since the 1980s as a conceptual artist who combines photography and text into richly narrative works based on manifestly ordinary and private experiences. Showings in Japan have included the 2013–2016 touring exhibition For the Last and First Time (Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum) and a 2019 solo exhibition at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art. Her most recent exhibition in Japan, Absences: Toulouse-Lautrec and Sophie Calle, commemorates the November 2024 reopening of the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo. She is the recipient of the 2024 Praemium Imperiale in painting.