The project was initiated by an invitation from the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Museum of Hunting and Nature) in Paris in 2017 for the exhibition Beau doublé Monsieur le Marquis! Faced with a world that was then foreign to her, Sophie Calle sought another way to approach the subject of hunting. Since she did not identify with either the pursuit of animals or hunting narratives, she turned her attention to other forms of pursuit. Through a chain of associations, the concept of the “hunt for love” emerged—one that has been expressed for over a century in the columns of newspapers through matrimonial ads.

This anonymous material echoes several themes that run through her work: investigation first, observation second, and above all, cataloging—a form she is particularly fond of. Behind the accumulation of these thousands of ads, a map of expectations, projections, and loneliness gradually takes shape. While in the 1900s marriage appeared to be an economic arrangement, over time issues of gender equality, women’s financial independence, and moral commitment have shifted, revealing by implication the social, ethical, and emotional changes that have evolved over the past century. 

The title, On the Hunt, introduces another dimension: that of watching, waiting, and surveillance. Each decade—featuring about fifteen ads, men and women carefully selected by the artist—is accompanied by an image slipped into a glassine envelope, with a Japanese-style binding. Printed on both sides, each image shows, on one side, an animal captured by an infrared camera with an automatic shutter (Sophie Calle obtained these surveillance images through a study of various hunting associations conducted on wildlife near French highways), and on the other side, a hunter’s mirador. Reading the book is an active process: as the reader goes through the 24 small envelopes, the artist leaves it up to them to choose which side of the image—front or back—they prefer to view. As they flip through the pages, they thus outline their own search for a romantic partner. This format extends the role-playing suggested by the title: being the hunter or the prey, the observer or the observed.

Conceived as a book à tiroirs, On the Hunt continues the exploration Sophie Calle has been conducting for many years on power, trust, doubt, and intimacy in the realm of romance. The book also reveals the evolution of our behaviors, our perceptions of desire, our understanding of gender, and the shifts in our emotional dependencies over the past century.