一場吸引了70萬觀衆的中國展 Exhibition on China and Fashion Proves Golden for Met
The talk of Wall Street over the last week may have been Shanghai’s plunging stock market, but many blocks farther uptown, where commuter traffic gives way to verdant sidewalks, a different set of numbers related to China was making news. As it entered its final week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring Costume Institute show, “China: Through the Looking Glass,” was attaining blockbuster status.
上週，華爾街談論的可能是滬市暴跌，但是走過很多街區，來到住宅區——在那裏上下班交通運行的車輛會給沒經驗的行人讓路——另一組與中國相關的數據也正成爲新聞。大都會藝術博物館(Metropolitan Museum of Art)的春季時裝學院展“中國：鏡花水月”(China: Through the Looking Glass)正獲得轟動影響。該展覽還有一週結束。
As of last Friday morning, 735,000 people had attended the show, with a week to go before its close on Sept. 7, including a final Friday and Saturday with viewing hours extended until midnight. That has already made it the most-visited Costume Institute show in the museum’s history, displacing “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” which pulled in 661,509 attendees, as well as elevating it to No. 7 — and climbing — on the museum’s top-10 most popular list, on a par with other 700,000-plus-visitor shows such as the “Mona Lisa” (1963), “Origins of Impressionism” (1995) and “Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” (2010).
截至上週五（8月28日）上午，這場展覽的參觀人次達到73.5萬。展覽還將持續一週，於9月7日結束，在最後的週五和週六，參觀時間延長至午夜。它已經取代“亞歷山大·麥昆：野性之美”(Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty)——參觀人次爲66.1509萬——成爲該博物館時裝學院史上參觀人次最多的展覽。它還擠進了該博物館的十大最受歡迎展覽之列，目前名列第七，名次還可能上升。其他參觀人次超過70萬的展覽有《蒙娜麗莎》(Mona Lisa, 1963)、《印象派起源》(Origins of Impressionism, 1995)和《畢加索在大都會藝術博物館》(Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010)。
Andrew Bolton, curator at the Costume Institute and the man behind the show, said there have been more positive responses left in the visitor’s comment box than ever before. (“Usually people use it as an opportunity to vent displeasure,” he said. “Often at the lighting, or the signage.”)
服裝學院的策展人安德魯·博爾頓(Andrew Bolton)是這場展覽的組織者。他說，觀衆意見箱裏的正面評價比以往任何時候都多（“通常人們用它來發泄不滿，”他說，“往往是關於燈光或指示牌”）。
By any objective measure, this will be the most successful fashion show the Met has ever had. The question is: Why?
不管以何種客觀標準衡量，它都將成爲大都會藝術博物館最成功的時裝展。問題是：爲什麼？
“Honestly, it totally surprised me,” Mr. Bolton said. “I was prepared for it to be polarizing. We were predicting around 500,000 visitors. I never expected this level of response. ”
“坦白地說，這完全出乎我的預料，”博爾頓說，“我以爲觀衆的反應會兩極化。我們預計會有約50萬觀衆。我從未想到反響會如此之大。”
“No one expected it would surpass McQueen,” said Maxwell K. Hearn, the Douglas Dillon chairman of the department of Asian art, and Mr. Bolton’s collaborator on the exhibition, which is in the Asian art galleries on the second floor, some Egyptian galleries on the first floor and the Anna Wintour Costume Center on ground level.
“沒人想到它會超過麥昆，”馬克斯韋爾·K·赫恩(Maxwell K. Hearn)說。他是亞洲藝術部的道格拉斯·狄龍(Douglas Dillon)主席，協助博爾頓策劃了這場展覽。展覽在三層的亞洲藝術館、二層的一些埃及展廳和一層的安娜·溫圖爾服裝中心(Anna Wintour Costume Center)舉辦。
I didn’t expect it, either. Not because I didn’t like the show (it’s visually engrossing in its mix of luxury, whimsy and point) but because it doesn’t have the single iconic hook that can transform a purportedly high culture meditation into an extended pop culture moment.
我也沒料到。不是因爲我不喜歡這場展覽（它集奢華、奇思妙想和所蘊含的意義於一體，具有強烈的視覺吸引力），而是因爲它沒有一個標誌性的、吸引人的東西，能把所謂的高端文化的冥思，轉變爲廣泛的屬於流行文化的時刻。
After all, it isn’t, as Mr. Bolton said, immediately obvious from the name what the show is about. (Answer: the way a received fantasy version of China engages the imaginations of Western designers.) And the subject itself was ripe for criticism from those who thought the approach played to a now-discredited stereotype of the East. You can’t attribute it to the sheer size of the exhibition, the largest ever, or it’s length, because size does not equate to allure.
畢竟，就像博爾頓說的，光看展覽的名字，你不會一下子明白它是講什麼的（這個問題的答案是：普遍幻想中的中國與西方設計師想象力的交匯方式）。這個主題本身很容易遭到批評，因爲有些人認爲它會助長人們對東方的固有觀念（如今這種觀念正遭受質疑）。你也不能把展覽的成功完全歸功於它的規模（迄今爲止最大的）或持續時間，因爲規模大、時間長不一定吸引人。
There wasn’t the sort of human gossip element that helped drive interest in the McQueen show, held a year after the designer’s suicide and days after Kate Middleton married Prince William in a dress by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen.
這場展覽也沒有八卦元素——麥昆展在一定程度上受益於此。那場展覽是在這位設計師自殺後一年舉辦的，而且在展覽前幾天，凱特·米德爾頓(Kate Middleton)身穿薩拉·伯頓(Sarah Burton)設計的亞歷山大·麥昆禮服嫁給了威廉王子(Prince William)。
There was, to be fair, lots of striking use of mixed media, which made it seem both very contemporary as well as historic. And it included film — Wong Kar-wai, who wrote and directed “In the Mood for Love,” was the exhibit’s art director, and clips from movies like “The Last Emperor” and “The World of Suzie Wong” abound — always a popular medium.
公平地講，展覽中使用了很多吸引人眼球的多媒體，讓展覽具有強烈的時代感和歷史感。其中還包括一向受歡迎的媒體形式——電影，比如《花樣年華》。該片的編劇兼導演王家衛是這場展覽的藝術總監。展覽中還有《末代皇帝》(The Last Emperor)和《蘇絲黃的世界》(The World of Suzie Wong)等影片的很多片段。
But Mr. Wong is an independent director as opposed to a household name, and when Baz Luhrmann, a much more recognizable Hollywood figure, was the creative consultant on an earlier Costume Institute show, 2012’s “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” it wasn’t nearly the same hot ticket.
不過，王家衛是一位獨立導演，並非家喻戶曉。2012年時裝學院的“夏帕瑞麗和普拉達：不可能的對話”展(Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations)聘請出名得多的好萊塢導演巴茲·呂爾曼(Baz Luhrmann)擔任創意顧問，但那次展覽沒這麼熱門。
When I first saw the show in May, I was struck by the facile nature of the fashion when juxtaposed against the antiquities. No matter the clothes’ beauty — I remember the runway impact of Tom Ford’s pagoda collection for Yves Saint Laurent and being amazed by the broken blue and white china shards of porcelain on an Alexander McQueen bodice — they pale when compared with the source of the inspiration, in part because the latter has a creative integrity the former only borrows. Often too literally.
5月份，第一次去看展覽時，我感到震驚，因爲與古董放在一起時，服裝顯得輕率膚淺。不管那些服裝有多美——我還記得湯姆·福特(Tom Ford)爲伊夫·聖羅蘭(Yves Saint Laurent)設計的寶塔系列在秀臺上的震撼效果，也曾被亞歷山大·麥昆連衣裙上身的青花瓷碎片圖案迷倒——但是在靈感來源面前，它們黯然失色，部分原因是古董擁有富於創意的完整性，而那些衣服則往往浮於表面。
It’s a good thing for the Asian art, because it makes you look twice at what otherwise may have been background pottery, for example, but not necessarily the clothes. It’s no accident my favorite room is the “small Buddha room,” which features an enormous gold dress by Guo Pei, the Chinese designer who made Rihanna’s yellow egg-yolk cape for the opening gala, surrounded by multiple earthen Buddhas. The connection being one of silhouette and shade as opposed to anything overt.
對亞洲藝術來說，這是好事，因爲它能讓你重新審視那些東西，它們原本可能只是作爲背景的瓷器，不一定能成爲服裝。我最喜歡“小佛陀展廳”，這絕非偶然。那個展廳的中心是中國設計師郭培設計的一件巨大的金色連衣裙，周圍是很多陶製佛像。蕾哈娜(Rihanna)在大都會藝術博物館慈善晚宴開場穿的煎餅裙就是郭培設計的。
This probably has more to do with my own discomfort with what the exhibit revealed about the superficiality of the fashion imagination rather than the exhibition itself (indeed, it’s part of the point of the show); as Holland Cotter wrote in his review, “the difference between the two disciplines is, too often, made glaring.”
很可能，我更多的是爲這場展覽揭露了時裝想象力的膚淺（這的確是這場展覽的意義之一）而感到不滿，而不是對展覽本身不滿。就像霍蘭德·科特(Holland Cotter)在評論中寫的，“這兩個門類的區別遭到太過頻繁的彰顯。”
It turns out reviews have nothing on word of mouth as an audience-driver. “I call it the ‘Harry Potter’ effect,” Mr. Bolton said.
結果發現，在拉動票房方面，評論遠比不上口碑。“我稱它爲《哈利·波特》(Harry Potter)效應，”博爾頓說。
And the word “China” was magical. Mr. Hearn said, “Chinese visitors often want to see how China is presented in Western museums.” Forty percent of the show’s visitors have been international, and since June, 14 percent of total international visitors have been Chinese, the Met’s largest single group of overseas visitors. China was also, until recently, the one of the most lucrative markets for Western fashion designers.
“中國”這個詞具有神奇的魔力。赫恩說，“中國遊客經常想看看西方博物館是如何展示中國的。”這場展覽40%的觀衆來自國外，從6月份起，外國觀衆中有14%來自中國，中國人是大都會藝術博物館海外觀衆中最大的羣體。直到不久前，中國也是西方設計師品牌最賺錢的市場之一。
Indeed, when the cynic in me first heard the exhibition’s title, I wondered if it was a calculated move to capture some of that gold dust. When pressed, Mr. Bolton claimed “we never think about the numbers,” though he did say, “I want to do exhibits that are relevant and resonate in contemporary culture.” It’s a slightly specious distinction (is making a listicle resonating with the culture or catering to click bait? Is there a difference?), but when it comes to the latter, there’s no question that China has been the buzz of many conversations, in every sector from Hollywood to finance, travel to e-commerce.
的確，當憤世嫉俗的我第一次聽說展覽的名字時，我懷疑它是一場意在吸金的精心算計的展覽。我逼問博爾頓時，他聲稱“我們從未想過參觀人數”，不過他確實說過，“我想舉辦與當代文化相關、能引起當代人共鳴的展覽”。兩者之間的差別有點可疑（你說清單體文章是爲了與文化共鳴還是爲了增加點擊量？有區別嗎？），不過，毋庸置疑，中國已成爲很多話題的熱點，從好萊塢、金融、旅遊到電子商務等各個領域。
In any case, the museum quickly learned that its original expectations were going to be surpassed, and in late June, Thomas P. Campbell, the director and chief executive of the Met, decided to extend the show another three weeks. It was only the second time a Costume Institute show had been extended (McQueen set that precedent).
不管怎樣，大都會藝術博物館很快意識到，它最初預測的數字將被超越，所以6月底，博物館館長兼首席執行官托馬斯·P·坎貝爾(Thomas P. Campbell)決定把展覽延長三週。這是第二個獲得延期的時裝學院展覽（麥昆展開了先例）。
“We are like a fungal infection,” Mr. Bolton said. “We start out small, and take over the whole museum.”
“我們就像真菌感染，”博爾頓說，“開始很小，後來佔據了整個博物館。”
This kind of takeover has created another problem for its creator: follow-up.
展覽的成功給策展人帶來了另一個問題：以後的展覽如何超越它。
Mr. Bolton acknowledged the challenge, noting that, after McQueen, in order to better manage expectations, he and Harold Koda curated two much “quieter, more poetic” shows: one based on a conversation between two women (Schiaparelli and Prada) and one that took a forensic approach to the work of Charles James.
博爾頓承認這是個挑戰。他說，在麥昆展後，爲了更好地應對人們的期待，他和哈羅德·科達(Harold Koda)策劃了兩場更“安靜、更詩意的”展覽：一個是兩個女人之間的對話（夏帕瑞麗和普拉達[Schiaparelli and Prada]），另一個是用辯論的方法審視查爾斯·詹姆斯(Charles James)。
That said, however, Mr. Bolton has an ambitious wish list. He’d like to do a conversation between Edith Wharton and Henry James inspired by two portraits in the American galleries that would combine an examination of the American men's wear tradition with furniture and sound. He would really like to work with the Egyptian galleries.
儘管如此，博爾頓還是有一個雄心勃勃的願望清單。受到美洲館裏伊迪絲·沃頓(Edith Wharton)和亨利·詹姆斯(Henry James)的肖像的啓發，他想在他們之間展開一場對話，探討美國男裝傳統與傢俱和聲音的關係。另外，他真的想與埃及館合作。
The museum’s biggest show, after all, was 1979’s “Treasures of Tutankhamun,” which attracted over a million people. You do the math.
畢竟，該博物館最大的展覽是1979年的“圖坦卡蒙的寶藏”(Treasures of Tutankhamun)，吸引了超過100萬觀衆。你自己比較一下。
