Ghosts

Ghosts deals with important art objects which have been damaged, stolen or have otherwise disappeared from public view. Sophie Calle resurrects the memory of these pieces in a series of profiles of each individual work of art. Through language and photography, she explores their personal meaning to those museum employees and others who knew the works intimately. The first part of Ghosts addresses pieces from the Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, that were out on temporary loan. The second part, Last seen, addresses pieces stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston; a painting partly destroyed by vandalism in 1980 from the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne; a Picasso painting Tête stolen in 1994 from Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago; and a Titian painting stolen in 1995 from the Marquis of Bath at Longleat House, England.