经济学人47:抹去自我的大师

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　　文艺；辛迪·谢尔曼在纽约现代艺术博物馆的展览

　　Mistress of self-effacement

　　抹去自我的大师

　　An American photographer reveals herself as never before

　　一位美国摄影师前所未有地展现自己

　　Cindy Sherman is a strangely elusive¹ artist. Her face has become famous through the photographs she takes of herself, but her work is not autobiographical. Coveted² by collectors and extolled³ by critics, her images explore raw human emotion and common artifice—without revealing who she really is.

　　艺术家辛迪·谢尔曼让人难以参透。她的作品不带自传性质，她的容颜却因这些自拍照广为人知；它们探寻人类最真实的情感，探寻人类最普遍的伪饰，却从不暴露真实的自我；它们被收藏家追捧，也被批评家称颂。

　　A retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York demonstrates that although the 58-year-old American may be her own model, she is not her own muse⁴. Her ninth-floor Manhattan studio also offers clues. Pinned to the walls are magazine cuttings and computer printouts of people in what she calls “preposterous” positions: society ladies in ball gowns making breakfast, actresses who are completely naked except for a designer handbag and costume jewellery. She keeps her props⁵ in meticulously⁶ organised cupboards—multicoloured wigs⁷, prosthetic noses, false boobs and funny clothes. An orange plastic chest of drawers holds loads of make-up; nearby is the giant track pad she uses to do her post-production digital work. It is here that Ms Sherman mutates into the objects of her fascination⁸.

　　从这场纽约现代艺术博物馆的回顾展，人们能看出58岁的谢尔曼身为自己的模特，却非自己的缪斯。她的工作室在曼哈顿一幢建筑的九楼，墙上钉着从杂志剪下或者用电脑印出的图片，图中人摆着被她称作“荒谬”的姿势：名媛身着舞会的华裳做着早点；女伶裸裎入镜，仅以定制手袋和廉价珠宝蔽身。她把自己的道具摆在橱柜上，整理得井井有条：七彩斑斓的假发，假鼻子，假胸，还有一些奇怪的衣服。橱柜的抽屉里，一个橙色的塑料匣子盛着大量化妆品；橱柜旁边的一块大手写板则用来给作品做后期数码处理。在这里，谢尔曼女士幻化成照片里那些令人心醉的人儿。

　　Why does the photographer appear in most of her work? One reason is shyness. Disguises can be liberating⁹ and delegating can be arduous¹⁰; she tried hiring models once, but found she hated it. Ms Sherman enjoys working alone and doing everything herself. She has also experimented with still lives in which she does not appear. These images appeal to her hard-core fans but they lack the life, literally¹¹, of her other work. They are also hard to sell. When collectors buy a Sherman photograph, they want her. Last year one of the 1981 “Centrefold” series (pictured) made $3.9m, then a record for a photograph at auction¹². Bemused by how much collectors want her in the frame, the artist mimics¹³ a male voice: “Is she behind that mask? I only want it if she is in there!”

　　为什么这位摄影家的大部分作品里都是她自己？羞涩是个原因。自己乔装打扮可以随心所欲，雇人办事可能麻烦得多。她也一度尝试使用模特，结果发现自己厌恶此事。谢尔曼乐于独立工作，独自做事，也曾拍摄过自己不存于斯的照片。这些照片吸引着她的铁杆拥趸，但却没有其它作品里的那个“活物”。收藏家就是为了看她，才会买她的照片，所以这类照片并不畅销。去年，1981年的《中央插页》（Centrefold）系列中的一张照片（见上图）拍出了390万美元，成为当时照片拍卖的一项纪录。这让她为收藏者看她入镜的执念震惊，学着男人的声音开玩笑说：“面具后面的是她吗？是她我才买这相片儿！”

　　Unlike many of her male peers who have jumped ship to bigger galleries, Ms Sherman has stayed loyal to her original dealers—Metro Pictures, the New York gallery that presented her first solo show in 1979, and Sprüth Magers, which has represented her in Europe since 1984. Neither gallery puts pressure on her; they let her get on with her work at her own pace. As a result, she does not overproduce or aimlessly repeat herself.

　　许多男同侪都跳槽去了大画廊，谢尔曼却对老东家——纽约的Metro Pictures从一而终。1979年，她在该画廊举行了第一次个人作品展；1984年，又在欧洲的Sprüth Magers画廊举行了个人展。两家画廊都未曾给她压力，让她按自己的步调行事，所以她不会粗制滥造，也不做无益的重复。

　　Ms Sherman broke into the art world with “Untitled Film Stills”, a series of 69 black-and-white images that were taken in the late 1970s. A fictional¹⁴ archive of publicity¹⁵ shots in which she poses as characters in films from the 1950s and 1960s, the work was an immediate¹⁶ hit. Its exploration of media culture took Pop Art beyond celebratory consumerism into a more critical vein¹⁷. And its satire¹⁸ of female stereotypes¹⁹ was subtly feminist²⁰—so subtle, in fact, that a feminist art historian advised the young Ms Sherman to superimpose text on the works to bring out the irony²¹.

　　谢尔曼凭借《无题电影剧照》（Untitled Film Stills）系列闯进艺术世界。这组作品摄于20世纪70年代末，包含69张黑白照片。她在其中扮演五六十年代年的电影角色。这套虚构的照片大出风头，一炮而红。它对媒体文化的探索，让大众艺术跳出了让人喜闻乐见的消费主义框框，走上了更有意义的道路。它对女性刻板角色的讽刺也带着微妙的女权主义色彩——微妙得让一位女权主义艺术史学家建议给作品加上说明，让讽刺变得明显些。

　　Ambiguity²² is a characteristic of Ms Sherman's work. One is never quite sure where the artist stands in relation to her characters, and they in turn are often difficult to define. The “Centrefold” series of 12 colour photos in which the artist shot herself from above with fearful or pensive²³ expressions added a layer of anxiety to the uncertainty²⁴.

　　谢尔曼作品的一大特色是含糊。人们很难确定她和这些角色的关系，而这些角色本身也很难定义。在《插页》系列中，谢尔曼用俯瞰的角度拍摄了12张彩色照片。她像在害怕，又像在沉思，还在这两种感觉外敷了一层焦虑，让人很难确定真实情感。

　　Among Ms Sherman's most celebrated²⁵ later works are her “Clowns”, which were shot in 2003 and 2004. Eva Respini, who has curated the MoMA show, believes that the clown is a “stand-in” for the artist. In one picture, the name Cindy is embroidered²⁶ on the jacket of a heavily made-up clown with prosthetic cheeks and nose. It is typical of Ms Sherman's style that she would be disguised beyond all recognition, looking sad and ugly, in a work that flirts²⁷ with self-portraiture.

　　《小丑》（Clowns）系列是谢尔曼最著名的作品之一，摄于2003~2004年。曾管理MoMA展览的Eva Respini说，小丑是谢尔曼的“替身”。在一张照片里，小丑戴着假脸蛋和假鼻子，脸上的妆浓墨重彩，身上的夹克绣着“Cindy”。谢尔曼就常常这样把自己掩藏起来，让人无从辨认，在有点“自画像”性质的照片里也不例外。

　　Indeed, looking over all the photographs, it is interesting to see how the artist has aged²⁸ gracefully²⁹ in real life but intriguingly³⁰ badly in her fictions. In 2007 French Vogue³¹ commissioned her to do a series of six photographs in which she transformed herself into desperate middle-aged³² fashion victims dressed in Balenciaga. These pictures led to “The Socialites” in which she depicted³³ herself as older women whose multimillionaire husbands, one suspects, have cast them off for younger versions. Their dignity in the face of faded glamour³⁴ reveals both the empathy and brutality³⁵ of the artist's eye.

　　当然，看完这些照片，你会发现她在岁月里优雅地老去，在幻境里却无比迷人，甚是有趣。2007年，法国《时尚》杂志委托她拍摄一组六张照片，化身为一位身着Balenciaga的中年“潮人”，让人想起《名流》（The Socialites）系列。在《名流》中，她扮演一些疑心已成箧中弃扇的年长妇女。她们面对年华老去的姿态庄严，说明她观察人时能做到感同身受，鞭辟入里。

　　Ms Sherman is a kind of actor-director of still pictures who delves³⁶ into the representation of women—and occasionally men—in Western society. Back in the 1970s, when she first embarked³⁷ on this artistic³⁸ path, few would have predicted that she could make so many compelling bodies of work through depicting³⁹ herself. But much like a character actor who takes pleasure in nailing a bit part, Ms Sherman takes a detailed⁴⁰ interest in others while mastering the art of making it up.

　　谢尔曼自导自演，拍摄了许多照片，潜心钻研表现西方女性（有时是男性）的方法。回想20世纪70年代，她刚刚踏上这条艺术道路，很少有人能想到她竟能用描绘自己的办法创造这么多引人瞩目的作品。她也像个乐于仔细刻画小角色的性格演员，不但对别人观察入微，塑造角色的功夫也是炉火纯青。

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