美国国家公共电台 NPR An Artist's Alternative Universe And His Warehouse Full Of Dolls

 

LAKSHMI SINGH, HOST:

We're going to hear now about Trenton Doyle Hancock. He's a star in the art world, and he collects dolls. He has so many dolls and toys he needs a studio the size of an airplane hangar in which to store them. Hancock's work is in the permanent collections of leading museums, including the Metropolitan¹ Museum of Art.

NPR's Neda Ulaby visited his new show in Philadelphia.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE²: As a child, Trenton Doyle Hancock made up a superhero - Torpedo³ Boy. The character is now the center of a complicated cosmos⁴ Hancock's developed over 30 years. It preoccupies⁵ his drawings, paintings, sculptures and now a stuffed torpedo boy doll.

TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK: Well, he looks like me. He's a black guy. His face is basically my face.

ULABY: Torpedo Boy's a recurring⁶ character throughout Hancock's work and in this exhibition at Temple University's Contemporary Art Museum. The show is intended to reveal the connections between Hancock's massive toy collection and his celebrated⁷ art.

ROBERT BLACKSON: He's on the A-list.

ULABY: Robert Blackson runs Temple Contemporary. He says as soon as Hancock makes work, it's snapped up by fanatical collectors. But he does not cater⁸ to them. Hancock makes art entirely⁹ for himself.

BLACKSON: He has no choice. It's not something that he can walk away from.

ULABY: He's driven, Blackson says, by an intensely personal vision.

BLACKSON: He carries with him wherever he goes. He wears it almost wherever he goes. There's a truth there that you can't escape.

HANCOCK: I'm obsessed¹⁰ with my own childhood.

ULABY: For example, when you walk into this show, you're overwhelmed by bright reds, greens and yellows meant to evoke¹¹ both a toy store and the tile in Hancock's grandma's bathroom. His stepfather was a minister and his mother a devout¹² Christian¹³.

HANCOCK: She had an extreme flare-up of religion (laughter)...

ULABY: And would not let Hancock play with toys she found unwholesome. Partly in response, Hancock created his own fantastical alternative world he calls the moundverse (ph).

HANCOCK: Mounds¹⁵ are these half-human and half-plant creatures. They're kind of these dopey, big mound¹⁴ heaps that can't really move or do anything.

ULABY: The moundverse contains dozens of complex characters, including a goddess who controls color.

HANCOCK: And this color can be manipulated to fuel and different things.

(LAUGHTER)

HANCOCK: I know. It's (laughter) - I live in my own head.

ULABY: Many of the characters in Hancock's head appear in the show as dolls - shiny, plastic ones that are a little bit unnerving. As an African-American kid who did not own lots of black toys, Hancock's fascinated by what makes dolls objects of desire. He used to pore over the Sears catalog, analyzing¹⁶ toy packaging and production as a way of understanding social aesthetics¹⁷.

HANCOCK: Like, what was cute in the '60s isn't what was cute in the '70s and definitely isn't what was cute in the '90s.

ULABY: Hancock collects dolls he finds in thrift¹⁸ stores, often missing clothes and hair. He says that helps reflect on the values placed on skin and bodies. He only buys toys made from 1959 through 1990.

HANCOCK: The rule is, if I come across it at a thrift shop, I have to buy it from those years. (Laughter) That's why I have to have another warehouse¹⁹ to accommodate the collection at this point.

ULABY: Hancock took a group of young aspiring²⁰ curators to the original warehouse last year.

IDA VILLANUEVA: I've never seen so many things - like, toys and colors - all at once. It's - like, that's really the most mind-blowing thing for me.

ULABY: Twenty-one-year-old Ida Villanueva is part of the Young Curators Council at Temple Contemporary. It's a project that trains young people of color from North Philadelphia to be curators. She's using Hancock's character Torpedo Boy as an inspiration for a workshop at a nearby Puerto Rican arts center.

VILLANUEVA: Families are invited - so parents and kids - to make their own superheroes based off of their cultural backgrounds.

ULABY: It's community engagement end, says Temple Contemporary's Rob Blackson, a response to a Mellon Foundation study that showed fewer than 10 percent of museum curators and leaders are black or Hispanic.

BLACKSON: That is way off the charts in terms of our own national census²¹ statistics.

ULABY: And in terms of the neighborhood where Temple Contemporary is located. Blackson also introduced Hancock, who attended Temple's Tyler School of Art, to a woman who runs a museum that's only a few blocks away. The Philadelphia Doll Museum only exhibits black dolls.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: For black children to see an image of theirself (ph) is a very positive experience.

ULABY: A short documentary about the museum is part of Hancock's new show. He collaborated²² with Barbara Whiteman on an exhibit inspired by the Clark doll test, where psychologists asked children in the 1940s to choose between a black and white doll. Most picked the white one. The results helped influence the Supreme²³ Court case Brown v. Board of Education. The black and white dolls packing this room, says Hancock, reflect how toys have historically expressed a more limited range of possibilities for black kids.

BLACKSON: So it's like you're given a few options. It's, like, well, I can be this, this or this. But little white girls can be (laughter) that whole row of them with, like, 50 options.

ULABY: As whimsical as his work with toys might seem, artist Trenton Doyle Hancock says it's rooted in reality.

HANCOCK: And it's a very American reality.

ULABY: One he feels that needs a new mythology²⁴ that reflects American histories and mistakes - the sort of mythology a person might start to invent as a child, maybe while playing with dolls.

Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

1 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 torpedo   

n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏

参考例句：

• His ship was blown up by a torpedo.他的船被一枚鱼雷炸毁了。
• Torpedo boats played an important role during World War Two.鱼雷艇在第二次世界大战中发挥了重要作用。

4 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

5 preoccupies   

v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

6 recurring   

adj.往复的，再次发生的

参考例句：

• This kind of problem is recurring often. 这类问题经常发生。
• For our own country, it has been a time for recurring trial. 就我们国家而言，它经过了一个反复考验的时期。

7 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

8 cater   

vi.(for/to)满足，迎合；(for)提供饮食及服务

参考例句：

• I expect he will be able to cater for your particular needs.我预计他能满足你的特殊需要。
• Most schools cater for children of different abilities.大多数学校能够满足具有不同天资的儿童的需要。

9 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

10 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

11 evoke   

vt.唤起，引起，使人想起

参考例句：

• These images are likely to evoke a strong response in the viewer.这些图像可能会在观众中产生强烈反响。
• Her only resource was the sympathy she could evoke.她以凭借的唯一力量就是她能从人们心底里激起的同情。

12 devout   

adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness)

参考例句：

• His devout Catholicism appeals to ordinary people.他对天主教的虔诚信仰感染了普通民众。
• The devout man prayed daily.那位虔诚的男士每天都祈祷。

13 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

14 mound   

n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫

参考例句：

• The explorers climbed a mound to survey the land around them.勘探者爬上土丘去勘测周围的土地。
• The mound can be used as our screen.这个土丘可做我们的掩蔽物。

15 mounds   

土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆

参考例句：

• We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
• Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊，这就是同墓，”——我想他要说的一定是公墓，“看到那些土墩了吗？

16 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

17 aesthetics   

n.(尤指艺术方面之)美学，审美学

参考例句：

• Sometimes, of course, our markings may be simply a matter of aesthetics. 当然，有时我们的标点符号也许只是个审美的问题。 来自名作英译部分
• The field of aesthetics presents an especially difficult problem to the historian. 美学领域向历史学家提出了一个格外困难的问题。

18 thrift   

adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约

参考例句：

• He has the virtues of thrift and hard work.他具备节俭和勤奋的美德。
• His thrift and industry speak well for his future.他的节俭和勤勉预示着他美好的未来。

19 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

20 aspiring   

adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求

参考例句：

• Aspiring musicians need hours of practice every day. 想当音乐家就要每天练许多小时。
• He came from an aspiring working-class background. 他出身于有抱负的工人阶级家庭。 来自辞典例句

21 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

22 collaborated   

合作( collaborate的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾结叛国

参考例句：

• We have collaborated on many projects over the years. 这些年来我们合作搞了许多项目。
• We have collaborated closely with the university on this project. 我们与大学在这个专案上紧密合作。

23 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

24 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。