瘋狂的人往往最清醒 Shanghai Remembers a Native Son With Art Retrospective
SHANGHAI —The conceptual artist Chen Zhen was 25 when he learned that he had a rare form of anemia and might have only five years to live. It was the early 1980s, and China was beginning to loosen travel restrictions on its citizens, so in 1986 Mr. Chen left his parents and his hometown of Shanghai and headed to Paris, where he studied art and worked as a sidewalk portrait artist.
上海——概念藝術家陳箴在25歲時得知自己患有一種罕見的貧血症，也許只能再活五年。當時是20世紀80年代初，中國開始放鬆對國民的旅行限制，所以1986年，陳箴離開父母和故鄉上海，前往巴黎，在那裏學習藝術，成了一名街頭肖像藝術家。
Mr. Chen ultimately died in the French capital in 2000, of cancer, but by that time he had achieved global recognition for his large-scale sculptures and installations, which explored themes of travel, health and homeland. His work had been in included in several international exhibitions, and he had been the subject of more the 30 solo shows in Europe, the United States and Asia.
2000年，陳箴最終因癌症在巴黎去世，不過那時他已憑藉大型雕塑和裝置作品獲得全球認可。他的作品探討旅行、健康和故鄉等主題。多個國際展覽收入他的作品，歐洲、美國和亞洲已舉辦30多場關於他的個展。
Now, Shanghai is celebrating its local son with a show at the Rockbund Art Museum through Oct. 7 — “Chen Zhen: Without going to New York and Paris, life could be internationalized.” It is only the second solo exhibition of Mr. Chen’s works in the city where he was born in 1955. The first was in 2006 at the Shanghai Art Museum.
陳箴1955年生於上海。現在，上海外灘美術館正通過一場展覽來紀念這位上海之子——“陳箴：不用去紐約巴黎，生活同樣國際化”，展覽持續至10月7日。這只是這座城市爲他舉辦的第二場個人作品展。第一場是2006年在上海美術館舉辦的。
“I think the whole Chinese art community feels like we owe him a comprehensive project,” said Liu Yingjiu, deputy director of the Rockbund. “He was so respected in the art community. We thought it was time to make another exhibit to show that his thoughts and his works still deeply resonate with our times.”
“我認爲，整個中國藝術界欠他一個全面回顧展，”上海外灘美術館副館長劉迎九說，“他在藝術界很受尊敬。我們認爲現在應該再舉辦一場展覽，來展示他的思想和作品。直至今日，他的思想和作品仍與我們的時代深刻共鳴。”
Hou Hanru, the curator of the show and the artistic director of the Maxxi, Italy’s national museum for contemporary art in Rome, said: “Art and being an artist was almost a kind of therapy for Chen Zhen, not just physically but psychologically and spiritually.
這場展覽的策展人是羅馬的意大利當代藝術博物館Maxxi的藝術總監侯瀚如。他說，“對陳箴來說，藝術和做藝術家幾乎是一種治療方法，不只是對身體，而且是對心理和精神。”
“For 20 years, he struggled for survival. But his health constraints and his traveling also made it possible for him to feel like he was in a state of constant discovery, which allowed him to develop more critical thinking on art and why he wanted to be an artist.”
“有20年時間，他都在爲生存而掙扎。但是健康狀況的侷限和旅行也讓他能夠不斷髮現，能夠對藝術以及他爲什麼想成爲藝術家進行更具批判性的思考。”
In mounting the show, Mr. Hou worked closely with Xu Min, Mr. Chen’s widow and longtime collaborator, to put together a condensed survey of the artist’s works, with pieces chosen to highlight his interests: the relationship between humans, nature and objects; Eastern and Western medical traditions; and urban planning and architecture.
組織展覽時，侯瀚如與陳箴的遺孀兼長期合作者徐敏密切合作。他們對這位藝術家的作品進行研究，精選出能突顯他興趣的作品：人類、自然和物體之間的關係；東西方的醫學傳統；城市規劃和建築。
The show also marks the fifth anniversary of the Rockbund Art Museum, one of several private contemporary art institutions that have emerged in Shanghai. The 11 works are spread over five floors of the renovated Art Deco building, which opened in 1932 as the headquarters of the Royal Asiatic Society.
這場展覽也是上海外灘美術館的五週年慶祝活動之一。該美術館是上海的幾個私立當代藝術機構之一，位於一個修復後的藝術裝飾風格的建築裏。該建築始於1932年，最初是皇家亞洲學會(Royal Asiatic Society)的總部所在地。展出的11件作品分佈在該建築的五層樓裏。
The exhibition begins on the second floor with a re-creation of one of Mr. Chen’s early works, a large-scale installation called “Purification Room.” Visitors are confronted with what he once called a sort of “archaeology of the future”: Scattered through the room are objects like furniture, a shopPing cart, a desktop computer and a scooter. Everything — the objects, the floor, the walls — is bathed or “purified” in beige-colored mud, reminiscent of a practice in Chinese folk medicine. The visual effect is what Mr. Chen termed a “monochrome tomb.”
展覽始於二層，陳箴的早期大型裝置作品《淨化室》在這裏得以復原。呈現在觀衆們面前的是一種“未來考古學”（陳箴的話）：房間裏散置着很多物品，比如傢俱、購物車、臺式電腦和踏板車。所有的東西，包括那些物品、地板和牆壁，都在黃泥中浸泡過或者說“淨化”過，讓人想起了中國民間醫學的一種療法。陳箴把它的視覺效果稱爲“單色墳墓”。
“When Chen Zhen arrived in France in the ’80s, he found a society that unlike China was already very much driven by the capitalist economic system,” said Mr. Hou, who along with Mr. Chen was closely associated in the 1990s with a circle of Chinese artists in Paris that included Huang Yong Ping and Yan Pei-Ming. “This was his way of contributing to the intellectual critique in France of consumerism, by introducing this kind of romantic idea, somewhat Chinese in a way, of purifying the culture that had been polluted by money and consumerist values.”
“80年代，陳箴到法國時，看到了一個與中國不同的社會，它在很大程度上已經是以資本主義經濟體系爲動力，”侯瀚如說。20世紀90年代，他和陳箴一樣，與巴黎的中國藝術家圈子關係密切，那個圈子裏還有黃永砯和嚴培明。“這是他批評法國消費主義的方式——以這種有點中式的浪漫概念來淨化被金錢和消費主義價值觀污染的文化。”
In subsequent galleries, the focus of the show turns to Mr. Chen’s reflections on the body and his concerns with the city and urban development — specifically his connection to Shanghai. For “Daily Incantations” (1996), he created what resembles a bianzhong, an ancient Chinese musical instrument with bronze bells, except wooden chamber pots replace the typical graduated arrangement of bells. A large jumble of old radios, televisions and telephones is placed at the center of the structure, while the sound of the daily ritualistic cleaning of night stools, routinely heard on the streets of Shanghai during Mr. Chen’s childhood, emanates from the suspended chamber pots.
接下來的幾個展廳把重點轉向陳箴對身體的反思以及他對城市和城市發展的憂慮，特別是他與上海的關係。《日咒》(1996)是模仿中國古代樂器編鐘，不過那些分層排列的銅鐘被木製夜壺代替。中央放置着一大堆亂七八糟的舊收音機、舊電視機和舊電話，懸掛的夜壺中發出清洗馬桶的聲音——那是陳箴童年時每天在上海街上都能聽到的聲音。
In a conversation about the work published on his website, Mr. Chen spoke about the intertwining of daily repetition and modernization.
陳箴的網站上發佈了一段關於自己作品的對話，他在其中提到日常重複行爲和現代化之間的交融。
“‘Daily Incantations’ is the result of my first home visit to Shanghai after eight years of overseas life,” he said. “Nobody gave me an invitation to exhibit at the time. Only, I saw once again those lovely Shanghai women cleaning night stools by the street side in early mornings, and they did this in the shadow of the Shanghai Hilton Hotel!”
“《日咒》是我在國外生活八年之後第一次回上海的產物，”他說，“當時沒人邀請我辦展覽。不過，我再次看到那些可愛的上海女人清晨在街邊清洗馬桶，而不遠處就是上海希爾頓酒店。”
He added: “That was very similar in nature to the ‘daily readings of the Red Book’ during the Cultural Revolution: an apathetically mechanic ‘daily repetition.”’
他補充說：“從本質上講，那很像‘文革’期間‘每天讀毛主席語錄’，只是無動於衷的機械重複。”
Sharing a floor with this sculptural installation is “Untitled Steamships” (2015), a work created for the exhibition by the museum, under Ms. Xu’s supervision, and based on detailed sketches by Mr. Chen and on Ms. Xu’s conversations with him. Given the recent news spotlight on China’s currency policy, the piece could hardly seem more timely. It consists of two wooden boats that were built with their bows intertwined, like conjoined twins. One is carrying goods labeled “Made in China” while the other says “Western Products,” in what can be seen on the simplest level as a comment on the interconnectedness of global markets.
與這個雕塑裝置作品處在同一樓層的還有《無題》(2015)，這件作品是該美術館在徐敏的指導下爲這次展覽創作的，以陳箴畫的詳細草圖以及他和徐敏的討論內容爲基礎。鑑於最近的新聞都在關注中國的貨幣政策，這件作品似乎非常應景。它由兩條小木船組成，船頭交織在一起，像連體嬰兒。一條船的貨物上寫着“中國製造”，另一條船上寫着“西方產品”。從最簡單的層次講，它是在闡釋全球市場的互聯性。
The top two floors of the exhibition are dedicated to Mr. Chen’s various research projects. On display on the upper floor of the museum cafe are photographs from a project undertaken by the artist on one of his visits back to Shanghai in the 1990s. Taken with the aim of documenting the evolution of the city, the photographs show a Shanghai just beginning to come into its own as a modern, outward-facing city. They also reveal Mr. Chen’s sense of humor.
最上面的兩層展示的是陳箴的各種研究項目。最上層咖啡館裏展示的是這位藝術家在90年代有一次回上海訪問時拍攝的照片。這個項目的目的是記錄這座城市的發展，當時的上海剛開始變成一個面向外部世界的現代城市。那些照片還展現了陳箴的幽默感。
In one photo, for example, he pictures a Shanghai subway advertisement for a local real estate development. “Without going to New York or Paris, the life could be internationalized,” the sign reads.
比如，其中一張照片拍的是上海地鐵裏一個地產開發項目的廣告。廣告詞是：“不用去紐約巴黎，生活同樣國際化。”
“When I saw the photo, I thought it would make the perfect title for the show because it really tells you what the Chinese dream is, then and now,” Mr. Hou said. “It raises an essential question about what the real image of a modern society is and how people project themselves onto it.”
“看到那張照片時，我心想，它很適合做這次展覽的標題，因爲它真的說出了從那時到現在的中國夢，”侯瀚如說，“它提出了一個關鍵問題：現代社會的真實形象是怎樣的，人們又是怎樣看待自己在其中的境況的。”
While Mr. Chen’s concern with the body and the self is reflected throughout the show, perhaps the most intimate expression of his thoughts is revealed in a selection of portraits and passages from a diary he kept during a six-month residency with a Shaker community in Maine in 1997.
雖然陳箴對身體和自我的憂慮反映在整場展覽中，但他最私密的想法也許體現在那些精選的肖像畫和日記節選中。那本日記是1997年他和一個震顫派(Shaker)團體在緬因州進行爲期六個月的駐地創作時寫的。
“Today I was thinking about how maybe the people in the art crowd are sick somehow, or crazy,” he wrote in Chinese in one passage. “We have countless connections to money and power, but we are often enslaved by them. We are the nonsmokers in a smoky room.
“今天，我在想，也許藝術界的人不知爲何都有點病態或瘋狂，”在其中一段裏，他用中文寫道，“我們與金錢和權力有着千絲萬縷的聯繫，但我們經常被它們束縛。我們是吸菸室裏不吸菸的人。”
“Then again, the artists are the most powerful, because we participate in the ‘game,’ we know the rules and we know how to overcome them. But we have to be crazy or psychotic. The sick ones often have the clearest minds.”
“所以我再次覺得，藝術家是最有力量的，因爲我們參與‘遊戲’，我們知道規則，也知道如何超越規則。但是我們必須瘋狂或精神錯亂。瘋狂的人往往最清醒。”
