從釣魚島到泥石流，紐約藝術展講述中國故事

Pop Art portraits of Mao Zedong and installations of Qing dynasty furniture have long represented the Chinese art world in New York and other cultural centers in the United States.

在紐約及美國的其他文化中心，毛澤東的波普藝術肖像和清代家具裝置一直是中國藝術界的代表。

But the Guggenheim Museum intends to broaden the artistic experience with its “Tales of Our Time,” opening on Friday, Nov. 4. Featuring eight newly commissioned projects by artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as from China, this exhibition will present fresh approaches to contemporary art from the region, highlighting alternative narratives that depart sharply from news accounts and official histories.

但是，古根海姆博物館(Guggenheim Museum)決定用《故事新編》(Tales of Our Time)來拓寬這種藝術體驗。該展覽將于11月4日(周五)開幕，包括來自香港、臺灣和中國的藝術家受委托全新創(chuàng)作了八件作品，它將以新鮮的方式探索該地區(qū)的當代藝術，強調(diào)與新聞報道和官方歷史迥然不同的其他講述方式。

“Our exhibition is not trying to tell people what is right or wrong, but maybe one way we can think about it is, how can we diversify people’s thinking about Chinese art?” said Xiaoyu Weng, an associate curator. Ms. Weng and Hou Hanru, consulting curator, organized the exhibition under the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative, a $10 million grant devoted to researching and commissioning works for the permanent collection.

“我們的展覽不是想告訴人們什么是對，什么是錯，不過我們也許可以從這個角度來思考它：我們怎么能讓人們對中國藝術的看法多樣化?”副策展人翁笑雨說。翁和策展顧問侯瀚如共同組織了這場展覽，它是何鴻毅家族基金中國藝術計劃(Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative)的一部分。該計劃撥款1000萬美元，用于研究和委約創(chuàng)作永久收藏。

The initiative’s first iteration, “Wang Jianwei: Time Temple,” which opened in 2014, focused on a single artist of an older generation, whose experimental works have been highly influential in China, while “Tales of Our Time” brings together a diverse group of younger artists to offer a broader view of the next wave in Chinese contemporary art.

該計劃的第一場展覽《汪建偉：時間寺》(Wang Jianwei: Time Temple)于2014年開幕，它關注的是老一輩單個藝術家——汪的實驗作品在中國很有影響力——而《故事新編》則匯聚了一個多樣化的年輕藝術家群體，以更廣泛的視角展現(xiàn)中國當代藝術的下一個浪潮。

From the catastrophic mudslide in Shenzhen to the Sino-Japanese dispute over the Diaoyu Islands (which the Japanese call the Senkaku) in the South China Sea, the exhibition touches on topics pulled straight from the headlines, but interpreted by artists who are storytellers more than they are documentarians. Employing media from ink painting to animatronics, they conceive of China more as a concept than as an identity, eschewing easy associations and symbols. This is fitting for a show that takes inspiration from the 1936 modernist classic “Old Tales Retold,” by Lu Xun, who appropriated folklore to critique the social conditions of his time. Likewise, the artists in “Tales of Our Time” examine conditions in contemporary China through approaches that often blur the distinction between fact and fiction.

從深圳的災難性泥石流到中日對東海釣魚島(日本稱為尖閣諸島[Senkaku])的爭議——這場展覽涉及各種登上新聞頭條的話題，不過是由藝術家們闡述，他們更多的是故事講述者，而非記錄者。他們采用水墨畫和電子動畫等媒介，把中國更多地視為一個概念，而非一種身份，避免簡單的聯(lián)系和象征。這很適合這場以魯迅1936年現(xiàn)代主義經(jīng)典作品《故事新編》為靈感的展覽。魯迅借用民間傳說批評自己所處時代的社會現(xiàn)實。同樣地，《故事新編》展覽的藝術家們也通過往往模糊現(xiàn)實和虛構界線的手法審視當代中國的現(xiàn)狀。

“Art has its own particular narrative, which is not just about illustrating a given fact,” Mr. Hou said. “It is about imagination and a kind of independence.”

“藝術有自己獨特的講述方法，不只是描繪已知的事實，” 侯瀚如說。“它是關于想像和一種獨立精神。”

Mr. Hou, artistic director at Maxxi, the National Museum of the 21st-Century Arts, in Rome, joined Ms. Weng on studio visits in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Hangzhou, starting in October 2015. In the end, they chose five individual artists, Zhou Tao, Chia-En Jao, Kan Xuan, Sun Xun and Tsang Kin-Wah; the team Sun Yuan & Peng Yu; and the three-member Yangjiang Group, most of whom will be making their American debuts.

侯瀚如是羅馬的21世紀國家藝術博物館Maxxi的藝術總監(jiān)。從2015年10月起，他和翁笑雨一起拜訪北京、上海、廣州、南京和杭州的藝術工作室。最后，他們選了五位獨立藝術家：周滔、饒加恩、闞萱、孫遜和曾建華，以及孫原、彭禹組合和三名成員構成的陽江組。他們大多是首次在美國展出自己的作品。

Sun Xun, a 36-year-old Beijing artist who has already shown in New York at the Sean Kelly Gallery, prepared several mural-size scrolls onto which his hand-drawn animations will be projected, offering a surrealistic look at his hometown, Fuxin, a coal-mining capital in northeast China that has fallen into decline. The Yangjiang Group — Zheng Guogu, 46; Chen Zaiyan, 45; and Sun Qinglin, 44 — is creating an interactive tea garden for the circular gallery overlooking Central Park, with a blood pressure station for visitors to measure the calming effect the installation has on their senses.

36歲的北京藝術家孫遜曾在紐約的肖恩凱利畫廊(Sean Kelly Gallery)展出過作品。他準備了幾幅壁畫大小的畫軸，把自己手繪的動畫投影到巨大的畫軸上，以超現(xiàn)實的視角展示自己的故鄉(xiāng)——中國東北部衰落的煤都阜新。陽江組包括46歲的鄭國谷、45歲的陳在炎和44歲的孫慶麟。他們正在為這個能俯瞰中央公園的環(huán)形展廳構建一個互動性茶會花園，還設了一個血壓站，觀眾可以測量這個裝置作品對他們感官所起到的鎮(zhèn)靜作用。

For the Taipei artist Mr. Jao, 40, the exhibition was a chance to complete a video, “Taxi,” that he has been contemplating for several years. For this work, he surreptitiously recorded conversations with taxi drivers en route to politically charged sites around the city. From a group of 60, he chose to concentrate on five who specifically spoke of the history of their destinations from personal experience. “Through this project, I get to view not brainwashing, but how things imprint on our memory,” Mr. Jao said in a telephone interview.

對40歲的臺北藝術家饒加恩來說，這場展覽給他提供了一個契機，使他完成了構思了七年的錄像裝置作品《計程車》。為完成這個作品，他去了臺北多個有政治意味的場所，在路上偷偷錄下他與出租車司機的談話。從60位出租車司機的談話中，他選取了5位作為素材，這幾位從自己的親身經(jīng)歷出發(fā)，具體談論了他們所要去的目的地的歷史。“通過這個項目，我觸及的不是給人洗腦的觀點，而是呈現(xiàn)事物如何在我們的記憶中留下痕跡，”饒加恩在接受電話采訪時說。

Ms. Kan, 44, another artist from Beijing and one of two women in the exhibition, also completed a long-term project, based on extensive travels throughout China to 110 ruins of ancient cities. Her multimedia installation “Ku Lue Er” plays videos on 11 screens compiled from the thousands of images she shot on her mobile phone during her journey. Mr. Hou and Ms. Weng recall their visit to her studio as one of their favorites; in contrast to the luscious images they were seeing, Ms. Kan’s cramped apartment, which served as her studio, was in a rundown building, unlike the vast spaces that many successful Chinese artists inhabit. They reviewed work and listened for more than five hours as her ideas poured forth.

44歲的闞萱也來自北京，是這次參展的兩位女藝術家之一。她也因這次展覽而完成了一個長期項目——她在中國各地進行大量旅行、探訪了110個古城遺址。她的多媒體裝置《圐圙兒》在11臺顯示器上播放視頻，它們是由她在旅途中用手機拍攝的數(shù)千張照片編輯而成。據(jù)侯瀚如和翁笑雨回憶，去闞萱工作室的過程是他們最喜歡的一次探訪;與他們看到的賞心悅目的照片形成對比的是，闞萱住在一棟破樓里的小公寓，這里兼作她的工作室，不像一些成功的中國藝術家，住在很大的地方。他們評估她的作品，聽她講了五個多小時的創(chuàng)作理念。

“Often, we see artists today working in a situation that is much more glamorous, but this was one of the most memorable meetings,” Mr. Hou said.

“一般，我們看到現(xiàn)在的藝術家在一種光鮮得多的環(huán)境下工作，但那是我們最難忘的會面之一，”侯瀚如說。

The artists who tested the limits of the Guggenheim as an institution are the team of Sun Yuan, 42, and Ms. Peng, 44 (the other female artist), who in the past have made installations using human body fat, live animals and corpses. At the Guggenheim, they will present a shovel-wielding machine scooping up a bloodlike liquid as it seeps across the floor. “When we first heard, we thought it was pretty cool, we thought it was pretty awesome, but we did not know how it was going to get realized,” Ms. Weng said, noting that the museum had concerns about safety and potential damage.

42歲的孫原和44歲的彭禹(另一位參展女藝術家)則挑戰(zhàn)了古根海姆作為一個藝術機構的底線。過去，他們曾用人體脂肪、活體動物和尸體創(chuàng)作過裝置作品。在古根海姆，他們將展示一臺揮舞鏟子的機器，將地面流淌的一種看起來像血液的液體鏟起。“一開始聽說的時候，我們覺得非?？幔X得它很棒，但我們不知道它會如何實現(xiàn)，”翁笑雨說。她表示博物館擔心安全問題，怕造成什么損壞。

For this generation of artists, Chinese identity is a completely different experience from what it was for the previous generation, which suffered through the isolation and repression of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976.

對這一代藝術家而言，中國身份是一種與上一代藝術家完全不同的體驗，后者經(jīng)歷了1966年至1976年的文化大革命的隔絕與壓抑。

Many of these artists studied abroad, and most work internationally. Mr. Jao earned a master of fine arts from Goldsmiths in London, for example, and Ms. Kan divides her time between Beijing and Amsterdam. “These artists concentrate on individual identities, rather than Chinese identity, but all build on quite Chinese topics,” Mr. Hou said. “It’s really about what happens at this moment in Chinese society that provokes debates, which on the one hand is a globally important question, and on the other, really a very individual interpretation.”

這代藝術家有不少曾在海外留學，大多在世界各地工作。比如，饒加恩在倫敦戈德史密斯大學(Goldsmiths)獲得了藝術碩士學位，闞萱在北京和阿姆斯特丹兩地生活。“這些藝術家關注個體身份，而不是中國身份，不過他們的作品都是圍繞非常中國的主題，”侯瀚如說道。“它實際上是關于此刻中國社會在發(fā)生什么引發(fā)爭論的事，它既是具有全球重要性的問題，同時又是一種非常個人化的闡釋。”

In such an exhibition, China is no longer an exotic territory or a national identity, but a cultural construct framed as much by current social conditions as by 5,000 years of history. “On the one hand, I don’t want people to get intimidated if they don’t know anything about Chinese art, but, also, I don’t want people to think they are experts and come looking to match their preconceived knowledge,” Ms. Weng said. “I want people to think about geopolitics, I want people to think about contested landscapes, I want people to enter the exhibitions and think about concepts and ideas, not a set of identities.”

在這樣一個展覽中，中國不再是一個有異國特色的地方，也不是一種民族身份，而是一個當前的社會狀況與5000年歷史各占一半的文化構建。“一方面，我不希望人們因為覺得自己一點也不了解中國藝術而退縮，同時也不希望他們覺得自己在這方面是專家，拿自己事先形成的知識來進行匹配，”翁笑雨說。“我希望人們考慮考慮地緣政治學，想想存有爭議的場景，希望人們走進展廳考慮種種的觀念和想法，而不是一套身份。”