Nadine Norman : Call Girl (English and French Edition)

Preceded by an extensive media blitz, Call Girl was a living installation which offered to anyone who desired it a thirty minute meeting with a call girl. Two stipulations defined the nature of the proposed exchange: that it be 100% all talk, and that it take place at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris. Through the formalization and theatricalization of the subsequent events (the call girls were impersonated by actresses), the artist sought to confront the visitor with the expectations he or she has in relation to a woman as an object of sexual fantasy. In the end, demand well exceeded supply. At the same time Norman set up an on-line installation based on the Homeric myth of Penelope, the paragon of womanly faithfulness, wherein she questions the emancipation of the female artist from her traditional venues of intervention. Bedard outlines the complicated logistics of setting up such an event. Comment provides an Homeric response to Norman's Penelope, and Giraudeau comments on the on-line installation.