经济学人31:无所尊重吗? Is nothing sacred?

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　文艺；书评；达米安·赫斯特回顾展；

　　Is nothing sacred?The Tate Modern stamp of approval；

　　无所尊重吗？泰特现代美术馆的准入章；

　　Damien Hirst may be rich and famous, but he does not have everything. The 46-year-old artist has never had a solo retrospective in a modern-art museum. If he is to turn his notoriety into immortality¹, he needs the backing of public institutions and the praise of serious critics. Mr Hirst and his dealers² have favoured fast sales over the art-historical side of his career. But Tate Modern has come to the rescue with an Olympic blockbuster show, which runs for five months from April 4th.

　　达米安·赫斯特或许富有而闻名，但他并非拥有了一切。这位46岁的艺术家从来没在一家现代艺术博物馆举办过个人回顾展。如果他打算将自己的恶名变成不朽，那就需要公共机构的支持，也需要严肃的评论家给出好评。赫斯特和他的经销商在其整个职业生涯艺术史的一面偏爱尽快拍卖。而泰特现代美术馆伸出援手，奥林匹克一鸣惊人者展于4月4日起开展，历时五个月。

　　The exhibition consists of 73 works made over a 22-year period, arranged chronologically³ to convey the evolution of Mr Hirst’s ideas. The general trajectory⁴ is from gritty to glitzy, from punk assemblages, such as cabinets filled with pills and cigarette butts⁵, to art that looks like bespoke⁶ luxury goods. If viewers cast aside their hostility⁷, what may astonish is Mr Hirst’s ability to transform dry conceptual art into witty⁸, emotionally engaging work.

　　展览包括赫斯特二十二年间创作的七十三件作品，按时间顺序排列以表达其思想的演变。一般轨迹是从砂砾到耀眼，从朋克组合到艺术品，朋克组合有装满药丸和烟头的橱柜等，而艺术品看起来像定制的奢侈品。观众如果抛开敌意，可能会震惊于赫斯特把枯燥的概念艺术转变成诙谐而富有情感魅力的作品的能力。

　　Six of the works in the show are owned or partially⁹ owned by the Tate. This includes two “still lives” which flicker¹⁰ between poignancy¹¹ and irony¹²: “Away from the Flock” (1994), a white sheep suspended in a tank of formaldehyde, and “Mother and Child Divided” (1993), a cow and calf¹³ split between four tanks. Of the 67 pieces borrowed for the show, only three have come from public institutions. The rest are on loan from dealers and a range of private collectors, including Miuccia Prada, Bernard Arnault and Steve Cohen. Luckily for them, works that have been anointed by the Tate command more credibility and a premium¹⁴ upon resale.

　　展览上有六件作品属于或部分属于泰特美术馆所拥有。这六件作品中包括两件介于辛酸和讽刺之间的《静寂的生命》，分别是《远离羊群》（1994年），一只泡在甲醛容器中的白羊， 以及《母子分离》（1993），在四个容器间切开的母牛和牛犊。展会借来的六十七件作品中只有三件出自公共机构。其余都是从经销商处以及一堆私人收藏家的手中借来的，这些收藏家包括缪西娅·普拉达、贝尔纳·阿尔诺以及史蒂夫·科恩。对他们来说幸运的是，被泰特美术馆选定的作品在转售时能赢得更高的信誉和溢价。

　　Yet the number-one lender to the Hirst retrospective is the artist himself. In addition to some early pieces, a breezy painting and a six-tonne bronze sculpture of an anatomical model, he has lent “A Thousand Years” (1991), a glass box that bears witness to the life cycle of flies. It was one of a dozen early works that the artist purchased back from his first patron, Charles Saatchi, in 2003. Mr Hirst suspects the sculpture is his most exciting piece. Many prefer a more beautiful work with a similar theme that he made a few months later, titled “In and Out of Love”. This installation consists of two rooms, one in which live butterflies hatch from pupae embedded¹⁵ in white paintings, and another in which dead butterflies are pressed onto the surfaces of brightly coloured canvasses¹⁶. The show reunites these two rooms for the first time in 20 years.

　　然而，赫斯特回顾展头号出借者是艺术家本人。除了一些早期作品，一幅凉风习习的自旋画和一个六吨重的解剖模型铜雕外，他还借出了《一千年》（1991年） ，一个装载了苍蝇生命周期见证的玻璃箱。这是赫斯特2003年从他的第一个主顾查尔斯·萨奇手中买回的十二件早期作品之一。赫斯特察觉这件雕塑是最令他兴奋的一件。许多人更喜欢几个月后他制作的类似主题更出色的作品，题目为《爱生爱灭》 。这件组装品包括两个空间，一个放着由嵌在白色油漆中的蛹羽化而成的活蝴蝶，另一个放着被压在鲜艳画布表面上的死蝴蝶。本次展览是二十年来首次重聚这两个空间。

　　The Tate’s turbine hall, a kind of post-industrial cathedral for art, will be given over to Mr Hirst’s diamond skull¹⁷, “For the Love of God” (2007), which the artist co-owns with his London gallery, White Cube. The small platinum¹⁸ sculpture, which features real human teeth and over 8,000 diamonds, was promoted with an asking price of ￡50m—a tabloid¹⁹ tactic²⁰ that clearly missed its target as the work failed to sell. The skull will be dramatically spot-lit in a dark room, much like jewellery at an auction²¹ preview. Officially, the display is not a marketing²² device but a comment on the “belief system” of capitalism²³.

　　泰特美术馆的涡轮大厅，这个有几分后工业的艺术殿堂交托给了赫斯特的钻石头骨《对上帝的爱》（2007年），它归赫斯特和伦敦画廊白立方共同拥有。这件小铂金雕塑的特色是有真正的人类牙齿和八千多颗钻石，以索价五千万英镑来促销，显然是没达到目标成了未售出作品的小报战术。这副头骨会在黑暗的展室里放出引人注目的点点光芒，更象是拍卖预展上的珠宝。正式来说，展览不是一种营销策略，而是对资本主义“信念系统”的注释。

　　Money is a theme but also a problem. The retrospective was meant to travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, but it has been put on indefinite hold because the show is so expensive. Works such as Mr Hirst’s famous shark (ie, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” from 1991, pictured) take at least six technicians and a full seven days to install. The price of crating²⁴, shipping²⁵, installing and insuring Mr Hirst’s works exceeds MoCA’s entire annual exhibition budget of $3m—a sum donated by Eli Broad, a philanthropist. He has lent two works from his substantial collection of Hirsts to the Tate.

　　钱是一个话题，但也是一个问题。这次回顾展必须要前往洛杉矶当代艺术博物馆，但已被无限期地搁置了，因为展出费用非常高昂。诸如赫斯特著名的鲨鱼（即1991年的《生者对死者无动于衷》，见图片）等作品至少需要六名技术人员花费整整七天的时间来安装。赫斯特作品的装箱、托运、安装以及投保价格超过了当代艺术博物馆整个年度三百万的展览预算，这笔三百万的预算是慈善家伊莱·布鲁德捐赠的。他从自己可观的赫斯特作品收藏中借出了两件作品给泰特美术馆。

　　There are two conspicuous²⁶ exclusions²⁷ from the retrospective. First, it contains no figurative paintings of any kind—no photorealist works, no microscopic²⁸ views of cancer cells, none of the canvasses that Mr Hirst paints with his own hand in the style of Francis Bacon. As it happens, most critics find these paintings painful to behold²⁹. Second, the exhibition omits “The Golden Calf” (2008), a bull with gold horns and hooves in a gold-plated tank, which was the centrepiece of Mr Hirst’s 2008 Sotheby’s sale, “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”. The Wall Street Journal reported that Fran?ois Pinault bought the ￡10.3m bull, a perplexing move for the owner of Christie’s, a connoisseur³⁰ with minimalist taste. Certainly Mr Pinault has deep investments in Mr Hirst’s work. He has lent two pieces to the Tate, including an important precursor³¹ to the shark, “Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (right)”.

　　这次回顾展有两点明显的例外。首先，它不包含任何形式的具象绘画，没有照相写实主义作品、没有癌细胞的微观视图、没有赫斯特亲手以弗朗西斯·培根风格画的油画。碰巧的是，大多数评论家认为这些画看着费力。其次，展览删除了《金牛犊》（2008年），一只镀金容器里金角金蹄的公牛，这件作品是赫斯特2008年苏富比拍卖会《美丽永驻我头》的中心装饰品。《华尔街日报》报道，弗朗索瓦·皮诺花一千零三十万英镑买下了金牛，这是品味简约的鉴赏家佳士得老板一个令人费解的举动。当然，皮诺对赫斯特的作品做了玄妙的投资。他借出了两件作品给泰特美术馆，包括鲨鱼的一件重要前驱作品《以（正确）理解为目的同向游泳的隔离元素》。

　　Many collectors of Mr Hirst’s work hope that this show will reinvigorate his market. According to artnet, a firm that tracks the art market, in 2011 one in four Hirst works that came up for auction failed to sell, and his highest price was $1.7m, down from $19m in 2007. Last year total auction turnover³² in Hirst works was a mere³³ $29.6m, placing him well behind artists such as Gerhard Richter, whose work earned almost $200m in auction sales, and Zeng Fanzhi, a Chinese painter who is probably the richest artist in the world.

　　许多赫斯特作品的收藏家都希望本次展览会重振他的行情。据一家追踪艺术品行情的公司artnet的说法，2011年拍卖的赫斯特作品中有四分之一未能卖出，其作品的最高价为一百七十万美元，比2007年的一千九百万美元跌了。去年赫斯特作品拍卖的成交总额只有两千九百六十万，远远落后于格哈德·里希特和曾梵志等艺术家，里希特的作品在拍卖会上赚了近两亿美元，而中国画家曾梵志可能是世届上最富有的艺术家。

　　Mr Hirst will have a place in history. An innovative³⁴ sculptor³⁵, he is also an opportunistic painter whose will to power can get in the way of his better judgment³⁶. If nothing else, Mr Hirst is likely to be remembered for his unusual aptitude³⁷ in blurring³⁸ the line between the sacred and profane³⁹.

　　赫斯特将在历史上占有一席之地。他是一个创新的雕塑家，也是一个投机取巧的画家，他的权力欲可能阻碍了他更好地作出判断。如果不出意外，赫斯特可能会因为他在模糊尊重和亵渎之间的界线方面天资非凡而被铭记。

分享到：