Parkett no 36/1993 Sophie Calle, Stephan Balkenhol insert Richmond Burton Parkett 1993 180 pp. -- isbn 3907509897 testi in inglese e tedesco 77,00         Sophie Calle: Dumped by email (Tate Gallery) Raro numero di Parkett del 1993 dedicato all'opera di Sophie Calle e Stephan Balkenhol. Mondrian sighted in front of Matisse at MOMA As if it had suddenly stepped off the wall of the museum, a Mondrian—in the form of a coat worn by a woman—strolls through the Matisse exhibition at MOMA (the classic art event of the past winter): Thus does Mondrian steal his way into the show of his colleague. We are reminded of Sophie Calle's GHOSTS (1991/92), ap¬pearing in the same museum at the exhi¬bition DisLocations. The artist asked the entire museum staff—from director to guards and cleaners—for descriptions of paintings that she had removed from the walls. Through the commentaries thus garnered, she professed her interest in personal connotations, in recollection and perception on the opposite shore of art history. Both Sophie Calle and Stephan Balkenhol—our collaborating artists in this issue—develop their works as if to bring the outside world into art through the emphatic yet impassive involvement of other human beings. However one might say that the focus of Calle's interest is actually that terrain which Balkenhol assiduously avoids.   Sophie Calle is a French artist who has exhibited extensively throughout the world since the late 1970s. Variously described as a conceptual artist, a photographer, a movie director, and even a detective, she has developed a practice that is instantly recognizable for its distinct narrative elements and frequent combination of images with text. Each of her projects can be seen as a chapter in a vast overall volume of references and echoes, in which Calle often blurs the boundaries between the intimate and the public, reality and fiction, art and life. Her work methodically orchestrates an unveiling of reality—her own and that of others—while allocating a controlled part of this reality to chance.   postmedia • books