一封寫得讓人不知如何回覆的信
將個人的心碎 轉化為一件深刻的公共藝術作品
「這一切開始於一封真實的信，一封寄給我的分手信，一封寫得讓我不知該如何回覆的信。信起來寫得很書面。我問了收到這封信那天在場的一位女性朋友，她會如何回覆這樣的信。我立刻想到要把這封信給其他女人讀，因為我認為這是一封男人寫給女人的信。」Sophie Calle 如此說道。
《Take Care of Yourself》是法國藝術家 Sophie Calle 創作的藝術家書籍，2007 年隨著她代表法國參加威尼斯雙年展一同出版。這個計畫的起因於 Sophie Calle 收到的分手電子郵件，信的結尾是「Take Care of Yourself」(「照顧好自己」)。 Sophie Calle 從來沒有回覆，但觸發她邀請了 107 位來自不同職業的女性，其中包括文法學家、心理分析學家、舞者、喜劇演員、歌手等，個以自己的方式剖析了這封分手信，從她們的專業角度來解讀、分析，有些則透過舞蹈、歌曲或表演做出回應，所有這些回應，都透過 Sophie Calle 的鏡頭記錄下來。
起初是這樣地的行為起了療癒的作用，然後個人的心碎，轉化為一件深刻的公共藝術作品 「一個月後，我感覺好多了。沒有痛苦。這很有效。這個計畫取代了那個人。」
這位前任「G.」信的文法和語句結構被文字編輯大肆批判，他的行為被禮儀顧問批判， 女演員 Jeanne Moreau 以表演回應，一名法醫精神科醫生認定他是「扭曲的操縱者」。在《Take Care of Yourself》中，讀者可以找到照片、書面分析，還有 DVD 和點字襯頁。這本書既具有個人色彩，又具有深刻的社群性，Sophie Calle 的私人痛苦轉化為女性集體解讀和團結的行為
透過《Take Care of Yourself》，Sophie Calle 模糊藝術與生活、公共與私人之間的界限，合作的規模和親密性顯得特別突出。Sophie Calle 將自己置於敘事的中心，但又退後一步，讓其他人來解讀甚至重新解讀她的故事。《Take Care of Yourself》融合了攝影、文字、影片和表演，是融合個人敘事、公眾參與和多媒體敘事的計畫。
你會如何回應他的信呢？這封信的全文如下：
Sophie,
I have been meaning to write and reply to your last email for a while. At the same time,
I thought it would be better to talk to you and tell you what I have to say outloud.
Still, at least it will be written.
As you have noticed, I have not been quite right recently. As if I no longer recognized myself in my own existence. A terrible feeling of anxiety, which I cannot really fight, other than keeping on going to try and overtake it, as I have always done. When we met, you laid down one condition: not to become the “fourth”. I stood by that promise: it has been months now since I have seen the “others,”because I obviously could find no way of seeing them without making you one of them.
I thought that would be enough, I thought that loving you and your love would be enough so that this anxiety – which constantly drives me to look further afield and which means that I will never feel quiet and at rest or probably even just happy or “generous”- would be calmed when I was with you, with the certainty that the love you have for me was the best for me, the best I have ever had , you know that. I thought that my writing would be a remedy, that my “disquiet” would dissolve into it so that i could find you. But no. In fact it even became worse, I cannot even tell you the sort of state I feel I am in. so I started calling the “others” again this week.
And I know what that means to me and the cycle that it will drag me into.
I have never lied to you and I do not intend to start lying now.
There was another rule that you laid down at the beginning of our affair: the day we
stopped being lovers you would no longer be able to envisage seeing me. You know this constraint can only ever strike me as disastrous, and unjust (when you still see B. and K. …) and understandable (obviously…); so I can never become your friend.
But now you can gauge how significant my decision is from the fact that I am prepared to bend to your will, even though there are so many things – not seeing you or talking to you or catching the way you look at people and things, and your gentleness towards me – that I will miss terribly.
Whatever happens, remember that I will always love you in the same way, my own way, that I have ever since I first met you; that it will carry on within me and, I am sure, will never die.
But it would be the worst kind of masquerade to prolong a situation now when you know as well as I do; it has become irreparable by the standards of the very love I have for you and you have for me a love which is now forcing me to be so frank with you, as final proof of what happened between us and will always be unique.
I would have liked things to have turned out differently.
Take care of yourself.
G.
出版年：2007 年
尺寸：Hmm x Wmm，精裝
頁數：424 頁
