CALLE, Sophie and Paul AUSTER. Gotham Handbook: New York, mode d’emploi.

(Arles, France): Actes Sud, 2009. Later printing. Softcover. 19cm by 10.1cm. 90 pages. A compelling and idiosyncratic collaboration between Sophie Calle, one of contemporary art’s most provocative practitioners of phototextual narrative, and novelist Paul Auster, The work occupies a unique space between conceptual art project and urban field manual. THe volume originated as a personal artistic challenge: Calle asked Auster to invent a fictional character whom she would spend a year attempting to emulate. Auster responded instead with a series of personalized directives — a “manual of instructions for S.C. on how to beautify life in New York” — which Calle carried out and documented through photographs and narrative entries. The result is an arresting blend of performance, autobiography, instruction, and city-portrait, refracting Paris-born Calle’s sensibilities through the lived textures of New York. Illustrated. A very good copy in wrappers with integral flaps.