冒險的藝術：她用刺繡重新連結朝鮮半島

SEOUL, South Korea — Growing up here in the 1970s, Kyungah Ham would occasionally find propaganda leaflets sent from North Korea via helium balloons. Like her classmates, Ms. Ham turned in the leaflets at school, where she was given a reward for doing a small part in South Korea’s simmering ideological war with its neighbor.

韓國首爾——1970年代，咸京我(Kyungah Ham)在這里長大的時候偶爾能發(fā)現(xiàn)朝鮮用氦氣球送過來的傳單。像同學一樣，咸京我把傳單交給學校，能得到一份獎勵，因為在韓國與鄰國細火慢燉的意識形態(tài)戰(zhàn)爭里出了小小的一份力。

In 2008, when Ms. Ham found another North Korean leaflet — this one under the gate of her parents’ home — it felt like an alien object, blown in from a different planet. By then, she was a multimedia artist who had come to distrust much of the history she’d been taught, and she knew that South Koreans were sending leaflets of their own over the border. That got her wondering: Could she communicate directly with people who, through a geopolitical tragedy now 65 years old, she is forbidden to contact?

2008年，咸京我又發(fā)現(xiàn)了一張朝鮮傳單——這次是在她父母家的大門底下——它顯得如此遙遠，就像是從外星球飄來的。那時候她已是一名多媒體藝術家，早已不再相信過去學校里教的歷史，她也知道了韓國以前也往國界那邊撒自己的傳單。這讓她陷入思考：在已持續(xù)65年的地緣政治悲劇里那些她禁止接觸的人，她能否與他們直接交流呢?

It was the birth of what might be the art world’s most extraordinary, ongoing collaboration. For a decade, Ms. Ham has been producing designs on her computer that are printed and smuggled into North Korea through intermediaries based in Russia or China. Then a group of anonymous artisans, whom she has never met or spoken to, are paid to convert them into embroideries, using exquisitely fine stitching. With bribes and subterfuge, the works are smuggled back out. Ultimately, they are shown and sold at galleries and exhibitions.

一場或許是藝術世界里最不尋常的、仍在進行中的合作，就此誕生了。十年來咸京我不斷在電腦上設計出圖案，打印出來后通過在俄羅斯或中國的中間人偷運進朝鮮。然后，一群與咸京我素未謀面的不具名工匠，受雇用精工細作的針腳把這些圖案變成刺繡。通過賄賂和花招，這些作品被偷運回來。最終，它們會在畫廊或藝術展覽上展出和銷售。

The most ambitious pieces are large-scale renderings of luminous, glittering chandeliers, some nearly 12 feet wide and 9 feet high, that from a distance look like photographs set against black backdrops. Get closer, and a filigree of stitches appear. Both chandelier and backdrop have been painstakingly composed of silk thread.

最宏偉的是一些描摹閃亮枝形吊燈的大尺幅作品，有些近12英尺寬、9英尺高，遠看就像黑色背景下拍攝的照片。湊近看，細密的針腳就顯現(xiàn)出來。枝形吊燈和背景都是一針一線精心繡制而成。

On one level, her embroideries are an attempt to reunite through art people who were forcibly separated in 1953 through war. The work marries the strength of the South (technology) to the strength of the North (craftsmanship), and it is confected through a hazard-filled maze.

某種程度上，她的刺繡作品試圖用藝術讓1953年因戰(zhàn)爭被迫分別的人們重逢。作品結合了南方的優(yōu)勢(技術)與北方的優(yōu)勢(手藝)，整個實現(xiàn)的過程危機四伏。

A lot of artists talk about taking risks, but few mean it as literally as Ms. Ham. International sanctions prohibit commerce with the Hermit Kingdom, so at least theoretically, she could face criminal prosecution for these cash-for-work transactions.

許多藝術家都談論冒險，但很少有人像咸京我這樣真的冒險。國際制裁禁止與朝鮮這個隱秘王國進行貿(mào)易活動，因此至少從理論上講，她可能因為這些作品的現(xiàn)金交易面臨刑事起訴。

The potential penalties for her collaborators are far graver. If caught, these residents of the world’s most repressive regime could be imprisoned or executed. The dangers facing the North Koreans raise ethical issues that, intended or otherwise, become part of Ms. Ham’s art.

與她合作的那些工匠可能受到更嚴重的處罰。全世界最專制政權之下的這些居民，一旦被發(fā)現(xiàn)做這種工作，可能入獄或被處決。這些朝鮮人面對的危險帶出藝術倫理的問題，有意也好無意也好，倫理問題成了咸京我藝術作品的一部分。

“With Kyungah’s work, it’s difficult to separate the object from the process of making the object,” said Rosalie Kim, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which acquired one of Ms. Ham’s embroideries in 2016. “The risk isn’t the point, but the risk emphasizes the consequences of the separation of the peninsula and what is at stake in trying to overcome it.”

“說到京我的作品，物品與制作物品的過程很難分開，”倫敦維多利亞和阿爾伯特博物館的策展人羅莎莉·金(Rosalie Kim)說，該博物館于2016年購藏了咸京我的一件刺繡作品。“關鍵并不在于風險，而是風險凸顯出半島割裂的后果，以及要試圖克服它所需的代價。”

Ms. Ham protects the covert network in her employ with a spymaster’s care, and would not discuss the size of the lump sums that cover the cost of intermediaries, artisans and bribes. But she hides neither her art nor the basics of her methods. The Embroidery Project, as she calls it, has been part of museum group shows in London, Vienna and Singapore, and wall labels beside each piece succinctly explain how it was made.

咸京我像個情報組織頭目一樣小心地保護她用到的秘密關系網(wǎng)，不肯討論在中間人、工匠以及打點關系上都要花費多少。但她并不隱藏她的藝術，也不隱瞞她的基本方法。她命名為“刺繡項目”的這些作品參加過倫敦、維也納和新加坡的美術館群展，每件作品旁邊的標簽都簡要解釋了它是怎樣制作的。

“North Korean Hand Embroidery,” reads one label. “Silk threads on cotton, middleman, anxiety, censorship, ideology, wooden frame, approx. 2200 hours/2 persons.”

“朝鮮手工刺繡，”一個標簽上這樣寫道，“棉布面絲線，中間人，焦慮，審查，意識形態(tài)，木框，用時約2200小時/2人。”

On first meeting, Ms. Ham seems wildly miscast for the role she has created for herself. She would be the first to admit that she is lousy at coping with stress, now a permanent feature of her life. Once, on a flight to meet an intermediary, she collapsed with a stomach ailment so painful and severe that as soon as she landed, she was put on the next plane back to Seoul and admitted to a hospital.

初次見面的咸京我完全不像她把自己塑造成的那種角色。她會搶先承認她極不擅長應對壓力，而壓力現(xiàn)在是她生活里的固定成分。有一次她飛去見一位中間人，半路上胃病發(fā)作疼痛難忍暈倒了，飛機落地后她馬上被送上下一趟回首爾的航班，然后住進了醫(yī)院。

If her nerves are fragile, other parts are made of steel. During interviews in both Paris and Seoul in recent months, she was adamant and particular about nearly everything. Before dinner at a brasserie, she rejected three different tables offered by a host. (Her final choice, it must be said, was superior to the others.) She issued demands about virtually every aspect of this article, including who would photograph her.

如果說她的神經(jīng)脆弱，那她的其他部分卻是鋼鐵造就。最近幾個月在巴黎和首爾的采訪中，她幾乎對所有事情都有堅決而具體的要求。有一次在小飯館吃晚餐，她拒絕了東道主建議的三張餐桌。(必須要說，她最后選的桌子確實比別的都好。)而對于本文，她幾乎對所有方面都提出了要求，包括誰來給她拍照。

And though an introvert by nature, once she overcomes her natural shyness, she is bursting with words.

盡管天生內(nèi)向，一旦她克服了本性里的羞怯，她的話就會滔滔不絕。

“If we take it step by step,” she said with a smile early in our first meeting, preparing to describe her life and work, “this will take five hours.”

我們第一次見面，她一開始正準備講述自己的人生和作品，“要是按部就班地講，”她微笑著說，“那得花五個小時。”

As Ms. Ham explained, her chandeliers are a symbol of the foreign powers that divided Korea along the 38th Parallel after three years of fighting the Korean War. (The golden age of those powers passed, she said, which is why these chandeliers are either falling or already on the ground.) The border was largely imposed on the peninsula by non-Koreans; Ms. Ham’s favorite word to describe this fact is “absurd.”

咸京我解釋說，作品中的大吊燈象征持續(xù)三年的朝鮮戰(zhàn)爭之后將朝鮮半島沿三八線分開的各種外國勢力。(這些勢力的黃金時代已經(jīng)過去，她說，這就是為什么畫面里的吊燈要么正在墜落，要么已經(jīng)掉到地上。)這條分界線很大程度上是外國人強加給半島的;咸京我愛用一個詞來描述這個事實：“荒謬”。

As she conceived her embroideries, she was inspired in part by a moment in a documentary about the Mass Games, Pyongyang’s socialist-realist extravaganza of tightly choreographed music, dance and gymnastics. The production includes a crowd, thousands of people strong, holding flip books in front their faces with blocks of colors on each page. The pages are turned in uncannily timed unison, a vast human billboard of seamlessly changing words and images.

構思刺繡作品時，一部講述朝鮮大型團體操的紀錄片中的某個時刻啟發(fā)了她。那是平壤的社會主義現(xiàn)實主義盛會，以精心編排的音樂、舞蹈和體操著稱。團體操演員數(shù)以千計，每個人都在面前舉起色板冊，每一頁上有不同的色塊。這些色板以神乎其技的同步性翻動，組成一個巨大的人工廣告牌，流暢地變換著標語和圖像。

Ms. Ham watched and saw the face of a young boy peeking over his color book.

咸京我看到了一張男孩的臉從色板冊下向外張望。

“He was like a pixel in a digital image,” she said. “I wanted to bring this idea to my chandeliers. Behind them are highly skilled embroidery workers, whom you can’t see, but they memorialize themselves, stitch by stitch.”

“他就像一幅數(shù)碼圖片里的一個像素，”她說。“我想把這個想法用到我那些枝形吊燈作品里。這些作品背后是技術高超的刺繡工人，你看不到他們，但他們一針又一針地讓自己為世人銘記。”

Pieces typically come back folded up in black plastic bags, reeking of cigarette smoke. Her first move is to hang up the work and air it out. The round trip to and from North Korea can take as long as a year, a process she likens to shouting from a mountain top and hearing her voice 12 months later.

這些作品通常是疊好了裝在黑色塑料袋里偷運回來，散發(fā)著香煙的臭味。她頭一件事就是把作品掛起來散味。從設計稿送往朝鮮到刺繡從朝鮮運回，時間可能長達一年，她把這個過程比作站在山頂呼喊，12個月后聽到自己聲音的回響。

Ms. Ham is not idle while she waits, and the embroideries are just one facet of a varied career. Since earning an M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York, in 1995, she has been making videos, sculptures, photographs and an assortment of installations. One recurring impulse is to highlight the ways power is abused, and for whatever reason, she is drawn to methods that give her agita.

等待時咸京我并沒閑著，刺繡作品只是她多彩事業(yè)中的一面。自1995年從紐約視覺藝術學院獲得美術碩士學位以來，她已經(jīng)創(chuàng)作過雕塑、攝影以及各種各樣的裝置作品。作品中一個反復出現(xiàn)的動機就是重點刻畫權力濫用的方式，不知什么原因，令她焦慮的創(chuàng)作方法總是特別吸引她。

With an installation called “Museum Display,” in 2010, theme and practice were combined. She has long been irked by the many Western museums filled with cultural treasures from other countries — think of the Elgin marbles, originally part of the Parthenon in Greece, which have spent the last 200 years in the British Museum. With wit and irony, Ms. Ham pilloried this tradition by stealing hundreds of mundane objects from museums around the world, including forks, saucers, knives, vases, salt and pepper shakers. She then displayed them in a huge glass case, under lights, labeling each item with the gravity befitting a looted masterpiece.

在2010年的一件裝置《博物館陳列》(Museum Display)當中，她把主題與實踐結合了起來。長久以來她已厭煩了那些裝滿別國文化珍寶的西方博物館——想想埃爾金大理石雕塑，原本是希臘帕特農(nóng)神廟的一部分，卻在大英博物館里過了200年。咸京我機智又反諷地批判了這種傳統(tǒng)，她從世界各地的博物館偷走數(shù)百件日常物品，包括餐刀、餐盤、餐叉、鹽瓶胡椒瓶，然后裝進巨大的玻璃盒子，陳列在燈光下，鄭重其事地給每一件物品加上標簽，如同介紹一件掠奪來的藝術杰作。

“Sign, ‘These doors are alarmed,’ 10cm x 10 cm, the British Museum, 2009,” reads one.

一個標簽是這么寫的：“標牌，‘此門裝有警報器’，10cm x 10cm，大英博物館，2009年”。

Her other great passion is connecting to strangers, and the Embroidery Project is an expression of that urge. Among the first images she conceived for her artisans were stylized words, rendered in both Korean and English, and set against abstract and colorful designs. One simply read “I’m sorry,” in the two languages.

另一個讓她極有熱情的事是與人建立聯(lián)系，“刺繡項目”就是這種欲望的表達。在她為工匠們構思的第一批圖案當中，有一些是風格化的文字，英韓雙語。其中一幅很簡單，就是兩種語言的“對不起”。

“I wanted to tell these artisans, ‘I’m sorry about the situation,’” she said. “‘I am sorry about what history has done to us.’”

“我想告訴那些工匠，‘我對這種境況很遺憾，’”她說。“‘為歷史對我們做的這些事，我覺得遺憾。’”

Later, she began what she calls the “SMS Series in Camouflage,” in which she weaves faint words, in script, into almost psychedelic oil slicks of color. One of these not-so-secret messages reads “Big Smile,” an instruction for performers during the Mass Games. When a gallerist urged her to employ embroiderers in China, arguing it would be far quicker and easier, she felt misunderstood enough to create a new message: “Are you lonely, too?”

后來她開始創(chuàng)作“保護色短信系列”，將隱約可見的短信文本融進水面浮油那種迷幻的色彩。這些短信并無秘密可言，其中一條是“用力微笑”，那是大型團體操當中給表演者的一個指示。一位畫廊主勸說她雇用中國的刺繡工匠，那樣快得多也更便利，她覺得自己被嚴重誤解，就創(chuàng)造了一條新的短信：“你也孤單嗎?”

Many early works were confiscated by North Korean authorities, either on the way in or out of the country. She has gone through several intermediaries, one of whom simply took her money, and has gradually found ways to work with standout artisans, using a code to convey her admiration for certain pieces. The result is a rarity — conceptual art in which the finished product is every bit as compelling as the concept itself.

許多早期作品被朝鮮當局沒收了，有的在運進去的時候，有的在運出來的時候。她經(jīng)歷過幾個中間人，有一個只拿錢不辦事，她漸漸找到方法與優(yōu)秀的工匠合作，用暗語傳達她對具體作品的贊賞。合作的成果是罕見的——一種制成品和觀念本身一樣引人入勝的觀念藝術。

“There are a lot of beautiful things you can buy at Art Basel, and there are a lot of clever conceptual strategies out there,” said Roger Buergel, the German-born artistic director of the 2012 Busan Biennale, which featured work by Ms. Ham. “She unites these two poles in a singular way. The pieces themselves are spectacular.”

“你在巴塞爾藝術展上能買到很多美麗的作品，那兒也有很多聰明的概念策略，”羅格·比格爾(Roger Buergel)說，這位德國出生的策展人曾任2012年釜山雙年展藝術總監(jiān)，咸京我的作品參加了那次展覽。“她用一種不尋常的方式統(tǒng)一了這兩極。這些作品本身就很壯觀。”

Though she has given interviews in the past, she spent months wavering about whether to speak to The Times. Friends have told her “Don’t get too famous.” Citing fatigue, she stopped answering texted questions a few weeks ago, including one about the summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Singapore last month. Would a rapprochement change — or even end — her project?

她過去接受過不少采訪，但還是猶豫了好幾個月是否接受《紐約時報》的采訪。幾周前她不再回答記者用短信發(fā)去的提問，說自己太疲勞。其中一個問題有關特朗普總統(tǒng)與金正恩六月在新加坡的會晤。與朝鮮的和解會改變她這個計劃嗎，會終結這個計劃嗎?

After a long silence, she sent a text a few day ago that said that if North Korea joined the brotherhood of nations, her work would be reinterpreted in a new political context and, she wrote, “stay alive in history.”

長久的沉默之后，幾天前她發(fā)來一條短信說，如果朝鮮與韓國締結兄弟關系，她的作品將在新的政治背景下得到解讀，它們?nèi)匀粫?ldquo;活在歷史中，”她寫道。

Today, her pieces sell for prices ranging from $25,000 to $300,000 in the Carlier Gebauer Gallery in Berlin and the Kukje Gallery in Seoul. But the largest collection of her work is in her storage facility outside Seoul. During a visit in February, Ms. Ham offered a tour of what is little more than a large and bare room, with embroideries neatly stacked against each other on the floor.

如今在柏林的卡里耶-蓋鮑爾畫廊(Carlier Gebauer)和首爾的國際畫廊(Kukje Gallery)，她的這些作品以2.5萬-30萬美元的價格出售。但大多數(shù)作品存放在首爾郊外她的作品倉庫。今年二月造訪時，咸京我提議可以去倉庫看看，就是一個大大的空房間而已，刺繡作品一幅幅整齊堆疊在地上。

Ms. Ham roamed around the space, beaming. She is somewhat ambivalent about parting with her chandeliers, especially if they are just going to hang on someone’s wall. Her preference is to lend pieces to exhibitions, or sell them to museums, where the largest possible audience can consider their improbable journey and marvel at their virtuosity.

咸京我信步倉庫，滿面春風。與這些大吊燈分別會讓她心情矛盾，尤其當它們只是去掛在某些人家里的墻上。她更愿意把作品借給藝術展，或是賣給博物館，因為那里的觀眾最有可能思考作品的奇特旅程，驚嘆它們的精湛工藝。

“I don’t tell the galleries about everything I have,” she said with a grin, “because they will sell it.”

“我不會告訴畫廊我都有些什么，”她笑著說，“他們會賣掉的。”