Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Lost Art

By Kate Driscoll

The Gardner Museum has been stolen from! But that was several years ago. A new sadness, however, is that Sophie Calle’s exhibit, Last Seen closed several days ago, on March 4^th. It was installed in the Gardner Museum, but of course is there no longer. People that would be interested in the artworks would be concerned with the Rembrandt theft in 1990 because that is what the exhibit is centered on, people missing the art. This photography, done by Sophie Calle, is contemporary, but the Rembrandt was not by any stretch of the imagination.

Sophie Calle is a French artist. She is a slew of many occupations like a photographer, writer, and director, and is widely known for her work. She has been a teacher at the European Graduate School since 2005. She does a seminar in film and photography there. How she became an artist was probably because she was surrounded by the artists during her lifetime with her father, Robert Calle, a French oncologist. Some of the most notable artists that may have inspired her were Martial Raysse, Arman, and Christian Boltanski. She has often used her artistic skills to place her photography alongside text in her own words. This is like her work at the exhibit, Sophie Calle: Last Seen, because next to her photography is a bunch of texts not of her words, but those of her interviews.

The artwork that stood out the most was the patterned cloth that covered the missing place of the art that was supposed to have a man and woman in it. Next to this photograph was the dialogue in the form of answers in an interview to people concerning their memory of the painting, A Lady and Gentleman in Black by Rembrandt. The last line of the interviews was, “they dominated the room.” This shows how much the artwork is missed because based on the interviews it was the great importance to that specific room.

The FBI is still trying to find the missing art pieces from the Rembrandt theft, but that was years ago. With Sophie Calle’s work, it shows the public that the art has still not been found, and to remind them to be on the lookout for it on their travels.