“At the end of January 1980, on the streets of Paris, I followed a man whom I lost sight of a few minutes later in the crowd. That very evening, by chance, he was introduced to me at an opening. During the course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent trip to Venice.” This is Sophie Calle’s statement on the trigger for the Vénitienne Suite. She then set off to Venice to find and follow this man she named Henry B., without him knowing or for any particular reason. The process was documented in photographs and texts written in a diaristic format.
“She had to remind herself that while it feels like she’s in love, she is not; that his elusivity may be more appealing than actually knowing him; and that the gap is wide between her own thoughts and his, which she cannot know.
Her investigation is both methodical (calling every hotel, visiting the police station) and arbitrary (sometimes following a stranger—a flower delivery boy, for instance—hoping someone might lead her to him). She sometimes tells the truth (when she enlists Venetian friends of her own friends who lend a phone, a look-out point, and make inquiries on her behalf). And sometimes she does not, inventing stories to entice strangers to come to her aid.”
A book compiling her documentation was fist published in 1980 and re-edited by Sigilo in 2002.