Love-Love by Julien Berthier

非常感谢设计方Julien Berthier将英文介绍和项目图片授权gooood发行。更多请至：Julien Berthier on gooood
Appreciation towards Julien Berthier for providing the following description:

爱-爱，是并不下沉的失事船只。是一个安全永久可移动的休闲场地。爱-爱制造出戏剧性的时刻，吸引人们注意，但是它并不下沉，上面甚至有合适的座位。艺术家创造出亦真亦假的图像，让人不敢相信自己的眼睛。

Love-love is the permanent and mobile image of a wrecked ship that has become a functional and safe leisure object.

I freezed the moment just a few seconds before the boat disappears forever, creating this endless vision of its most dramatic moment. Yet, something not noticeable at first glance comes in the way of this stereotyped image. The boat  actually doesn’t sink. And the sailor, well installed in an upside down seat, doesn’t seem to panic. Looking closely at it, he can even sail his wrecked ship.

I wanted to create an ambiguous image where in the end the viewer doesn’t really know what to think about what he sees.

I found the wrecked boat in Normandy, France in 2007. It was there for years and was somehow supposed to be destroyed. Its owner, Odile Moulin, gave it to me for a new life after I explained the project to her. I worked on site, on a boat yard. The boat was cut in two, sealed with fiberglass, and the keel was slightly modified and repositioned. A seat was built  according to the boat’s new position. Two electrical motors where placed underneath to propel the boat.The boat is surprisingly stable and despite its poor hydrodynamic qualities, is very well maneuverable in calm waters.

Love Love is the original name of this type of boats, built in the 80’s for families to sail on weekends. I liked the idea of keeping the original name, and also the emotional aspect it added to the piece.

The Love Love had fore lives till now.

First it was putten in the harbor of Granville, Normandy, France, close to where it was built. Over there the people know a lot about boats and particularly this type of boats. So there was a lot of empathy and help offered before noticing that there was something wrong in the stage of emergency itself and that actually nothing was going wrong.

The Love Love then traveled to a show in London in 2008, on the Thames, in Canary Wharf, in front of the financial district. The fate made that it was installed facing the Lehmann brothers building just two days after their bankruptcy. The Love Love therefore became a symbolic image of the crisis for both the viewers and the press. But once again, what really interested me was the fact that even in that context,  it stayed an ambiguous image. Of course it is a wrecked ship (with behind the idea of some personal drama), but at the same time it never sinks and is functioning in its dramatic position. So it wasn’t just the image of a collapsing world, it was also the image of a world that still goes regardless of its fall.

This summer the piece was shown in Lindau, Germany, on the Constance lake. The police, firemen and harbor masters where all aware that it was a piece of art. But despite this warning, calls for help kept coming in until some unaware person finally picked up one of the calls, sending out twenty people to rescue a never sinking boat.

I my artistic practice in general, I try to make my work as hyper-realistic as possible. I want people to feel that my objects (and the situations in “real” life they create), are part of today’s social and economical reality, that they respond to a necessity no matter how unefficient they can be. That is why it is very important for me to have a moment when the work actually confronts itself to the public sphere before ending up in museums and galleries.

不过爱-爱真的是用失事船只做的，艺术家利用了一艘2007年在诺曼底失事的船只，艺术家征得船只主人的同意，将船一分为二，重新改造，变成现在稳定的爱-爱。爱-爱本是在80年代家庭周末航行游中流行这类型船只的称呼，艺术家出于各方面考虑，保留了原有称谓。

爱-爱到到目前为止已经存在4年了。最初出现在法国诺曼底港口附近。接着是08年出现在伦敦的泰晤士河上，因为当时莱曼兄弟刚刚破产两天，爱-爱成为了媒体危机的象征形象。但艺术家真正感兴趣的还是作品的亦真亦假，这种永不下沉的失事船舶。他不仅仅是崩溃世界的形象，他还是一个不顾一切的崩溃世界。

随后，爱-爱出现在德国的Constance湖，虽然当地的警察，救护员还有港口主人都知道这是一个艺术品，但是还是有不明真相的群众不断的打救援电话，使得一个二十人的救援小组出动，来拯救这艘永不沉的船。

艺术家追求超现实，希望他的作品成为人们“真实”生活的一部分，并发生互动。这就是最重要的。

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