Associação Cultural Videobrasil

General Curatorship by Sophie Calle
2009 | Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2009 | Museum of Moder Art, Salvador, BA, Brazil

A breakup e-mail received by French conceptual artist Sophie Calle provides the theme for Take Care of Yourself, a work first featured at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). Invited by Calle, over one hundred women of the most varied occupations analyze and interpret the message from the perspective of their professional activities. Text, video, and photograph recordings of the interpretations comprise the exhibition, which was brought to Brazil in 2009 by Associação Cultural Videobrasil and SESC São Paulo, as part of the program for the Year of France in Brazil.

Take Care of Yourself was visited by more than fifty thousand people at SESC Pompeia (July through September) and at the Bahia Museum of Modern Art (September through November), and included an intensive Educational Curatorial Program, devised to bring the audience closer to the work, and to invite them to produce poetic responses to it. Audience reactions are also featured on the exhibition’s participative blog.