Research.

Jeff Wall - 'The Destroyed Room'



Inspired by The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) by Eugène Delacroix, which depicts the Assyrian monarch on his deathbed, commanding the destruction of his possessions and slaughter of his concubines in a last act of defiance against invading armies.
       There is an obvious sense that the photograph has been staged,  'Through the door you can see that it's only a set held up by supports, that this is not a real space, this is no-one's house,' he has commented. It's evident that the photograph shows a womens bedroom, but the reason as to why it's in the state it's in is un-clear, leaving the viewer wondering how the situation came about. The photograph is obviously constructed with a synthetic ordering, creating an almost theatrical feel.

Sophie Calle - 'The Birthday Ceremony'



'The Birthday Ceremony is her first major sculptural installation and it has been conceived especially for Art Now 14. Although made in 1998 the work has its origins in the years 1980 to 1993 when Calle invented and sustained a series of private and shared rituals around her birthday. These are now manifest as art, demonstrating how closely her life and her art are intertwined. Over this fourteen-year period, aside from the occasional year of disruption, Calle held an annual dinner party on the evening (or around the time) of her birthday. To each celebration she invited a group of friends and relatives, the precise number of invitees corresponding to the number of years of her age, with one additional, anonymous guest nominated by a chosen guest, in order to symbolise the unknown of her future. Calle initiated these dinner parties to ensure that her birthday was remembered each year. They were the most ambitious of a series of rituals Calle had invented to override an obsessive insecurity she experienced in early adulthood. The guests brought gifts, tokens of love and affection, and these Calle displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet, as a constant reminder of this affection. At the end of the year the objects were boxed up and put away, their places taken by the gifts of another birthday dinner party. At stressful moments over the years Calle was able to unpack the boxes and reassure herself of her networks of support.'