The Boat in the House the House in the Boat

The boat as a metaphor of the human spirit of discovery, of a nomadic, searching, perhaps even restless way of life has its counterpoint in the symbol of the house whose solid brick walls represent a settled life, home and continuity. Both, the boat as well as the house, are archaic symbols of human ingenuity, but also of the mutability of the human spirit faced with the wide spectrum between these two poles. The two basic forms, “house” and “boat” are interlaced in the artist Ilan Averbuch’s sculpture, forming a new, intertwined whole that mirrors the way the two extremes are blended in the human spirit. A field barn on a remote meadow, easily over 100 years old, with quarry stone and brick walls and a red-tiled gable roof, became the starting point of his artistic intervention. The building’s form, reduced to its essential elements, and its function as a shelter against wind and weather make this building per se look like a timeless symbol. Ilan Averbuch has placed a wooden construction on the roof which the viewer automatically completes to form a boat piercing the roof. Its prow and stern jut out over the roof, with a ship’s mast rising in the middle. The wooden structure set on the roof does not represent a boat but is easily identifiable as an artistic sculpture which evokes associations of sailing or Viking boats. At the same time, however, the rough wooden beams are reminiscent of an upside-down roof, reconfirming the multilayered interweaving and kinship of the two opposing concepts of stability and adventure.

The sculpture was created as part of the “Nieheimer Kunstpfad” (Nieheim Art Trail) of which it currently forms an outpost. Since the pasture is still in use and the building serves as a shelter for the cattle grazing there, visitors are not always able to access the immediate vicinity of the house, but in any case the sculpture, embedded in the surrounding landscape of forests and meadows, offers an impressive visual experience.