Sophie Calle (b. 1953) is a French artist and photographer known for working with conceptual themes and installations. In her work The Chromatic Diet (1998), the artist references Auster’s novel Leviathian which includes a character named Maria that was inspired by Sophie Calle. The character Maria in Leviathian is a photographer that followed the same projects and rituals as Sophie Calle while still having her own personality, therefore in attempt to bring the narrative and reality closer together Calle copied the characteristics that were unique to this fictional character. The Chromatic Diet is an homage to the novel because the character Maria is described as limiting her meals to foods of the same color per day, which is executed by Calle in this work. The photographs in this work describe Monday’s diet as using only orange foods and orange tableware, Tuesday’s as red, Wednesday’s as white, and Thursday’s as green. Because the novel only described Monday through Thursday, Calle continued this pattern with her own colors through Sunday and also included a typed menu that describes the meal of each day.
I think this work is interesting because it combines the aesthetic qualities of a narrative with rituals of daily life which is both visually engaging and relatable. As the viewer I find that the imagery is successful on its own, but the contextual information adds conceptual depth to the composition.
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