Dimensions: displayed: 2140 x 1420 mm
Copyright: © DACS, 2014 | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: Sophie Calle's "The Hotel, Room 44" is a diptych featuring photographs and text. I find the arrangement of mundane objects strangely unsettling. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The objects left behind – the clothes, toiletries, and personal effects – become charged with the absent occupants' stories, evoking a sense of intimacy and vulnerability. Each item acts as a symbol, a fragment of their identity left behind. Editor: Like clues, almost? Curator: Precisely. The hotel room itself becomes a stage for reflecting on themes of transience and the human condition. Calle invites us to contemplate the narratives we construct from the traces others leave behind. Editor: That’s fascinating! I never thought about it that way. Curator: The power of the image lies in its ability to evoke these stories.
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This is a two-part framed work comprising photographs and text. In the upper part, the title Room 44 is printed below a colour photograph of adjacent wooden twin bed-heads flush against ornately patterned gilt wallpaper. The twin beds are joined by a tautly pulled colourful Indian-print bedspread. Below the title, three columns of italic text are diary entries describing findings in the hotel room between Tuesday 17 February 1981 and Sunday 1 March. In the lower frame a grid of nine black and white photographs show things listed in the text above. This work is part of a project titled The Hotel, which the artist has defined:
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