Creative Time Announces 25-Year-Long Project, “Here Lie The Secrets Of The Visitors Of Green-Wood Cemetery”, with Artist Sophie Calle

March 21st, 2017

Creative Time is pleased to announce the commission of “Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery”, a 25 year long new public artwork by the internationally renowned French conceptual artist Sophie Calle co-presented with Green-Wood Cemetery. The project will debut with a two daylong inaugural event on April 29th and 30th, 2017. The Artist will be present on April 29th and 30th from 12 – 5 PM.

To inaugurate the project, the public is invited to Green-Wood Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to privately unburden and inter their most intimate confessions.

“Like many of Sophie Calle’s stirring artworks, Here Lie the Secrets of the Visitors of Green-Wood Cemetery provides space for intimate reflection. It is a quiet, personal, and yet also public act.” says Creative Time Artistic Director Nato Thompson. “In a time of such social upheaval, delicate gestures like this gain urgency.”

During the two-day opening, in a setting nestled among the mausoleums and monuments of Green-Wood’s verdant rolling hills, visitors will transcribe their secrets onto paper, seal them in an envelope, and deposit them into the earth below, through a slot on a marble obelisk of Calle’s design. The artist herself will be on hand during the two-day event to receive some visitors’ secrets.

“Questions of identity, morality, and voyeurism have long been integral to Calle’s work. We’re thrilled to present this intimate, personal reflection on them, set against the stunning landscape of Green-Wood,” says Creative Time Executive Director Katie Hollander.

“Green-Wood has inspired artists for nearly two-centuries. Its juxtaposition of natural beauty with questions of mortality and meaning present a unique stage for Ms. Calle’s work,” noted Richard J. Moylan, President of Green-Wood.

The two-day performance will be open and free to the public. Guests are invited to spend the day exploring the sculptures and monuments throughout Green-Wood, a tradition that dates back to the early 1800s. Free maps of the cemetery, specially designed to accompany Calle’s installation, will be available. Also guided walking tours, with an emphasis on symbols and iconography, will be offered at no cost. Following the inaugural performance weekend, visitors to the Cemetery can see Calle’s installation during regular cemetery hours and independently deposit secrets into the marble obelisk.

Calle has also pledged to return periodically over the next 25 years, each time the grave is filled, to exhume and cremate them in a ceremonial bonfire service and moment of remembrance.