Dimensions: displayed: 2140 x 1420 mm
Copyright: © DACS, 2014 | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Sophie Calle's "The Hotel, Room 47," part of the Tate collection, strikes me as a fragmented narrative, built from photographs. Editor: Intriguing. The composition's grid-like structure, juxtaposing color with black and white imagery, immediately conveys a sense of detachment. It almost feels like a police file. Curator: Indeed. Calle worked as a chambermaid, documenting the intimate spaces of hotel rooms. The interplay between text and image constructs a subtle commentary on privacy, observation, and the gaze. Editor: The formal repetition of the beds, for example, suggests a kind of existential emptiness, a stage set awaiting the next act. What power dynamics were in play with Calle's role as both observer and worker? Curator: Precisely. The work challenges the institutional frameworks dictating who has the right to see and record. It's a provocative gesture. Editor: Ultimately, the work's strength lies in its meticulous structure and its unsettling probing of societal boundaries around surveillance.
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This is a two-part framed work comprising photographs and text. In the upper part, the title Room 47 is printed below a colour photograph of elegantly carved wooden twin head-boards behind a bed covered in rich brown satin. Below it, three columns of italic text are diary entries describing findings in the hotel room between Sunday 22 February 1981 and Tuesday 24. 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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