Entry
Free, donations welcome
Date
Sat 3 Oct 2026–24 Jan 2027
Time
11am–5pm, Tue–Sun and Bank Holidays
Location
Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate
This autumn, Turner Contemporary presents Sophie Calle: Something Missing?, the artist’s first institutional exhibition in the UK in over fifteen years. Bringing together major works spanning photography, film and installation from 1986–2024, the exhibition explores themes of memory, disappearance and longing by one of the most influential artists of our time.
Admission to Turner is free. A one-off or regular donation will help support artists to realise exciting new exhibitions and inspire over 300,000 children, young people and adults each year with free access to art and creative activities.
Exhibition overview
For more than five decades, Calle has achieved international renown for addressing the big questions of human experience—from love, lossand longing, to guilt, fear and embarrassment—with equal parts poetry, wit, and conceptual rigour. Navigating public and private, control and chance, her works offer an irresistible glimpse into the innermost lives of friends, lovers, strangers—as well as that of Calle herself.
At the core of the exhibition is absence. As Calle has put it, it is ‘the things that are missing—my mother who is no longer here, a lover who leaves, an idea that doesn’t come' that drive her. Through her signature use of photography and text-based work and video installation, Calle assumes the roles of historian, sociologist, detective, philosopher and—above all—storyteller, pairing her own photographs with matter-of-fact first-person accounts.
Clarrie Wallis, Director of Turner Contemporary, said: 'Sophie Calle is one of the most distinctive artists of our time, whose work has influenced generations through its emotional honesty, conceptual precision and wit. We are thrilled to present her first institutional exhibition in the UK in over fifteen years, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the extraordinary breadth of her remarkable practice.'
‘Sophie Calle is one of the most distinctive artists of our time, whose work has influenced generations through its emotional honesty, conceptual precision and wit.’
The exhibition brings together significant works from across Calle’s career, including:
- The Blind (1986), in which people born without sight describe their idea of beauty.
- Voir la Mer (2011), a moving multi-channel video installation capturing the moment when individuals see the sea for the first time.
- Purloined (Turner) (1998–2013), developed from the memories of two JMW Turner paintings stolen while on loan from Tate.
- On the Hunt (2017–2024), a more-than-century-spanning exploration of romantic desire, tracing personal advertisements from 1895 through to contemporary Tinder messages.
- Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished (2023), a reflection on abandoned projects, unrealised ideas and artistic intention.
Together, these works offer a rare opportunity to experience the extraordinary breadth of Calle’s practice and her enduring influence on contemporary art.
About the artist
Sophie Calle (born 1953, Paris) received a BA from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and began her artistic practice in the late 1970s.
Calle has represented France at the 52nd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2007 and been the subject of numerous major solo exhibitions worldwide including, most recently, Sophie Calle: Overshare (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis), Absences: Sophie Calle & Toulouse-Lautrec (Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo and À toi de faire, ma mignonne (Musee Picasso, Paris). In 2024, she presented Finir en Beauté in the cryptoporticus at Arles as part of the photography festival Rencontres d’Arles in France.
Internationally, Calle is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Tate, London, among many others.
Calle is the recipient of numerous awards, including most recently the Praemium Imperiale Award in 2024, as well as the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal, an Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography, and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, among others.
Calle lives and works in Malakoff and Paris, France.
Accessibility information
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We offer free BSL tours of all our exhibitions, which you can book here.
We also subtitle all our films where possible and offer written transcripts of both films and audio works on display.
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A hearing loop system is in place at our retail and café counters.
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We’re wheelchair accessible, with step-free access and a lift serving both floors. You can enter the gallery via the access ramp to the right of the entrance steps.
You can also borrow a wheelchair or portable stool during your visit, and our staff will be happy to help if you require any additional assistance.
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Large print versions of the exhibition text and magnifying sheets are available. Please ask a member of staff if you would like to use them.
Our staff are trained in delivering audio descriptive tours. If you would like more information about booking an audio described tour please get in touch with us: access@turnercontemporary.org | +44(0)1843 233 000 (operated daily 10am–5pm)
Audio versions of the exhibition text can be found on our free digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app. For more information and to download the app click here. -
Entry to the exhibition is free, but we welcome donations.
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Our opening times for this exhibition are:
11am–5pm, Tuesday to Sunday until 1 November
11am–5pm, Wednesday to Sunday from 2 November
And every bank holiday -
Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG
Support
Organised by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, in collaboration with Turner Contemporary, Margate, and De Pont Museum, Tilburg.
The exhibition is accompanied by an English-language catalogue featuring new essays by Laurie Anderson and Yves-Alain Bois, alongside a new interview with Sophie Calle by Édouard Louis.
Further details about events, public programmes and exhibition information will be announced soon.
Public funders
Header image: Sophie Calle, Calle-Joconde – Wrong turn (detail), 2023. From the series: Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished. © Sophie Calle / DACS, Paris, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
