I really love color. I notice it everywhere and in everything. My family makes fun of me because I like to use colors with elusive-sounding names, like celadon ...
我真的很愛顏色。 無論何處任何東西, 我首先注意到的就是顏色。 我的家人則取笑我, 因為我喜歡用一些 名字很縹緲的顏色, 譬如青瓷色……
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
ecru ... carmine. Now, if you haven't noticed, I am black, thank you --
生成色…… 胭脂紅。 對了,如果你還沒有注意到, 我是黑人,謝謝。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
and when you grow up in a segregated city as I have, like Chicago, you're conditioned to believe that color and race can never be separate. There's hardly a day that goes by that somebody is not reminding you of your color. Racism is my city's vivid hue.
如果你像我一樣, 生長在種族隔離的城市, 例如芝加哥, 你自然而然就相信 膚色和種族永遠是分不開的。 幾乎每一天, 都有人會提醒你,你的膚色。 種族主義給了我的城市 一個鮮明的色彩。
Now, we can all agree that race is a socially constructed phenomenon, but it's often hard to see it in our everyday existence. Its pervasiveness is everywhere. The neighborhoods I grew up in were filled with a kind of culturally coded beauty. Major commercial corridors were lined with brightly painted storefronts that competed for black consumer dollars. The visual mash-ups of corner stores and beauty supply houses, currency exchanges, are where I actually, inadvertently learned the foundational principles of something I would later come to know is called color theory. I can remember being pretty intimidated by this term in college -- color theory. All these stuffy old white guys with their treatises and obscure terminologies. I'd mastered each one of their color palettes and associated principles. Color theory essentially boils down to the art and science of using color to form compositions and spaces. It's not so complicated.
如今我們都同意, 種族意識是社會建構的產物。 即使在日常生活中不是很明顯。 它卻影響深遠無處不在。 在我成長的那個區, 充滿了某種種族文化的美。 鎮中心的商業街兩旁都是 漆了鮮明亮麗顏色的店家, 爭相招攬黑人顧客的生意。 就在這樣充滿視覺混搭的 街角小店、美容用品店、 外幣兌換店的環境中, 我不知不覺地學到了日後知道 名為色彩理論的基本原理。 我還記得在大學的時候, 自己非常害怕這個名詞── 色彩理論。 也怕那些論述一堆、滿口術語的 沉悶乏味的白人。 我早已熟知所有的 調色組合及相關原理。 色彩理論基本上就是 藝術和科學的濃縮, 運用顏色形成架構與空間。 其實並不複雜。
This was my bible in college. Josef Albers posited a theory about the color red, and it always has stuck with me. He argues that the iconic color of a cola can is red, and that in fact all of us can agree that it's red but the kinds of reds that we imagine are as varied as the number of people in this room. So imagine that. This color that we've all been taught since kindergarten is primary -- red, yellow, blue -- in fact is not primary, is not irreducible, is not objective but quite subjective. What?
這是我大學時奉為圭臬的書。 約瑟夫·亞伯斯提出的 一個有關紅色的理論, 我牢記不忘。 他說可口可樂的經典顏色──紅色, 大家都同意那是紅色, 可是我們每個人想像中的紅色種類 可能與在座的人數一樣多。 所以你可以想像, 我們從幼稚園就學到的三原色── 紅色、黃色、藍色── 事實上並不是原色, 也沒有那麼絕對, 它們並非客觀, 而是相當主觀的顏色。 什麼?!
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Albers called this "relational." Relational. And so it was the first time that I was able to see my own neighborhood as a relational context. Each color is affected by its neighbor. Each other is affected by its neighbor.
亞伯斯稱之為「相關性」。 相關性。 那是第一次, 我用相關性去審視我所居住的地方。 每個顏色都受到環境的影響。 所有事物都被鄰近的環境影響。
In the 1930s, the United States government created the Federal Housing Administration, which in turn created a series of maps which were using a color-coding system to determine which neighborhoods should and should not receive federal housing loans. Their residential security map was its own kind of color palette, and in fact was more influential than all of those color palettes that I had been studying in college combined. Banks would not lend to people who lived in neighborhoods like mine. That's me in D86. Their cartographers were literally coloring in these maps and labeling that color "hazardous." Red was the new black, and black neighborhoods were colored.
在 1930 年代, 美國政府成立了 聯邦住宅管理局(FHA), 之後 FHA 做了一系列的地圖, 上面用顏色代號清楚劃分出 哪些地區可以申請到 聯邦住宅貸款,哪些不行。 他們的住宅區安全地圖, 又有自成一套的顏色系統, 而且比我在大學裡 所學到的所有的顏色系統 具有更大的影響力。 銀行絕不會貸款給住在 類似我所住的社區的人。 我住在地圖上的 D86 這區。 他們的製圖師在這些地圖上 塗上顏色, 然後將之標示為「高風險」。 紅色就是黑人所在區, 黑人社區被塗上顏色。
The problem persists today, and we've seen it most recently in the foreclosure crisis. In Chicago, this is best symbolized by these Xs that are emblazoned on the fronts of vacated houses on the South and West Side. The reality is that someone else's color palettes were determining my physical and artistic existence. Ridiculous.
這問題現在依然存在, 前不久那一波銀行沒收房屋、 法拍變現的危機中就可看見。 在芝加哥的西邊及南岸, 那些被畫上大叉叉的空房子 就是最好的代表。 現實的情況是,這個別人的顏色系統 左右了我實質上及藝術的存在感。 太荒謬了。
I decided that I'd create my own color palette and speak to the people who live where I do and alter the way that color had been defined for us. It was a palette that I didn't have to search far for and look for in a treatise, because I already knew it. What kind of painter emerges from this reality? What color is urban? What color is ghetto? What color is privilege? What color is gang-related? What color is gentrification? What color is Freddie Gray? What color is Mike Brown? Finally, I'd found a way to connect my racialized understanding of color with my theoretical understanding of color. And I gave birth to my third baby: "Color(ed) Theory."
我決定創作一套我自己的顏色系統, 讓與我住在同一區的人知道, 不要再由他人定義我們的顏色。 我想要的顏色系統近在眼前, 無須翻查論述, 一切了然於心。 在這樣的現實環境中 能產生什麼樣的畫家呢? 都市是什麼顏色? 貧民區又是什麼顏色? 權貴是什麼顏色? 黑道又是什麼顏色? 仕紳化又是什麼顏色? 弗雷迪·格雷是什麼顏色? (被警察拘留時死亡的一名黑人) 邁克·布朗又是什麼顏色? (無辜被警察射殺的一名黑人) 最後,我找到了一種方式, 將我對顏色在種族方面的理解 與我學到的顏色理論連結起來。 這便是我的第三個孩子: 「有色理論」。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"Color(ed) Theory" was a two-year artistic project in which I applied my own color palette to my own neighborhoods in my own way. Now, if I walked down 79th Street right now and I asked 50 people for the name of the slightly greener shade of cyan, they would look at me sideways.
「有色理論」是為期兩年的藝術創作, 將我的顏色系統, 以我自己的方式,運用在我的社區。 假如我到 79 街上, 隨便問 50 個人知不知道 那個偏淺綠的青色是什麼顏色, 他們會很可疑地看著我。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But if I say, "What color is Ultra Sheen?" -- oh, a smile emerges, stories about their grandmother's bathroom ensue. I mean, who needs turquoise when you have Ultra Sheen? Who needs teal when you have Ultra Sheen? Who needs ultramarine when you have ...
如果我問:「超炫亮 (廉價護髮素)是什麼顏色?」 噢,微笑出現了, 緊接著就是一堆跟 祖母的浴室相關的回憶。 真的,如果你已經有超炫亮了, 誰還需要土耳其藍? 如果有了超炫亮,誰會需要水鴨藍? 誰需要群青色,如果你已經有──
(Audience) Ultra Sheen.
(觀眾)超炫亮。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
This is exactly how I derived my palette. I would ask friends and family and people with backgrounds that were similar to mine for those stories and memories. The stories weren't always happy but the colors always resonated more than the product itself. I took those theories to the street. "Ultra Sheen." "Pink Oil Moisturizer." If you're from Chicago, "Harold's Chicken Shack."
這正是我的顏色系統的由來。 我請我的朋友和家人, 以及與我有相似背景的人, 分享他們的故事及記憶。 不見得都是快樂的故事, 但是伴隨故事出場的顏色 更讓人產生共鳴。 我把這些理論應用到街上, 「超炫亮護髮素。」 「粉紅油護髮乳。」 如果你來自芝加哥,你一定 知道「哈羅德炸雞店。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
"Currency Exchange + Safe Passage." "Flamin' Red Hots." "Loose Squares" ... and "Crown Royal Bag."
「外匯兌換店 + 安全導護通道」、 「火辣奇多」、 「散裝香煙唱片公司」…… 還有「皇冠皇家威士忌包裝袋。」
I painted soon-to-be-demolished homes in a much-maligned area called Englewood. We'd gather up as much paint as I could fit in my trunk, I'd call my most trusted art homies, my amazing husband always by my side, and we'd paint every inch of the exteriors in monochromatic fashion. I wanted to understand scale in a way that I hadn't before. I wanted to apply the colors to the biggest canvas I could imagine ... houses. So I'd obsessively drive up and down familiar streets that I'd grown up on, I'd cross-reference these houses with the city's data portal to make sure that they'd been tagged for demolition -- unsalvageable, left for dead. I really wanted to understand what it meant to just let color rule, to trust my instincts, to stop asking for permission. No meetings with city officials, no community buy-in, just let color rule in my desire to paint different pictures about the South Side.
我將位在備受唾棄的恩格塢那區 即將被拆除的房屋漆上顏色。 我將卡車後車廂塞滿了油漆, 打電話給我最信任的藝術家老友, 還有總是支持我的好丈夫, 我們用單一顏色塗滿每個房子的外牆。 我想嘗試從未嘗試過的規模。 將這些顏色應用在我所能 想像的、最大的畫布上…… 房屋。 我著魔似地開著車穿梭在 我從小長大熟悉的街道上, 參照市政府的數據, 確認這些房屋是已列在拆毀名單中── 無法整修、廢棄無用。 我很想知道將一切 交給顏色去主宰是什麼感覺, 以及相信我的直覺, 不再等待請求被批准。 不需要與市政官員開會, 無須得到社區同意, 純粹就讓顏色去主宰, 畫出我心目中芝加哥南岸的景象。
These houses sit in stark contrast to their fully lined counterparts. We'd paint to make them stand out like Monopoly pieces in these environments. And we'd go on these early Sunday mornings and keep going until we ran out of that paint or until someone complained.
這些房子與其他排列整齊的 房子形成鮮明對比。 它們上色後,在這個環境中 就像大富翁遊戲中的房子 那樣突出。 我們每週日一大早就開始, 一直做到油漆用完, 還是被人投訴才停止。
"Hey, did you paint that?" a driver asked as I was taking this image one day.
「嘿,那是你漆的嗎?」 那天我在拍這張照片時, 一個人停下車問我。
Me, nervously: "Yes?"
我非常緊張的回答他: 「是的。」
His face changed. "Aw, I thought Prince was coming."
他臉色變了。 「喔,我以為王子要來。」 (黑人歌手)
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
He had grown up on this block, and so you could imagine when he drove past and saw one of its last remaining houses mysteriously change colors overnight, it was clearly not a Crown Royal bag involved, it was a secret beacon from Prince.
他是在這個區長大的, 所以你可以想像, 當他開車經過時, 看到唯一剩下的房屋, 一夜之間神秘地改變了顏色。 而且明顯地與皇冠皇家威士忌無關, 肯定是王子的秘密信號。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
And though that block was almost all but erased, it was the idea that Prince could pop up in unexpected places and give free concerts in areas that the music industry and society had deemed were not valuable anymore. For him, the idea that just the image of this house was enough to bring Prince there meant that it was possible. In that moment, that little patch of Eggleston had become synonymous with royalty. And for however briefly, Eric Bennett's neighborhood had regained its value. So we traded stories despite being strangers about which high school we'd gone to and where we'd grown up, and Mrs. So-and-so's candy store -- of being kids on the South Side. And once I revealed that in fact this project had absolutely nothing to do with Prince, Eric nodded in seeming agreement, and as we parted ways and he drove off, he said, "But he could still come!"
即使那個地區幾乎全被拆光了, 但是王子就是可能 這樣出其不意地出現在 這些音樂界及大眾 早已覺得沒有價值的地方, 辦他的免費演唱會。 對他來說, 光靠這個房子的外形, 就足夠吸引王子前來, 就象徵了可能性。 在那一刻, 恩格塢的這一小塊地方便等同於王室。 就在那短暫的片刻, 艾瑞克·班尼特的社區 又重新找回它的價值。 即使互不相識,我們還是聊了起來, 各自念了哪個高中, 在哪些地方長大, 還有某某太太的糖果店…… 就只因我們都是芝加哥南岸的小孩。 即使在我說明 這一切和王子一點關係都沒有, 艾瑞克就只是點了點頭, 可是在我們互道再見,他要開走前, 他突然加了一句說: 「但是王子還是可以來!」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
He had assumed full ownership of this project and was not willing to relinquish it, even to me, its author. That, for me, was success.
就好像這全部都是他所策畫的, 毫不放棄, 即使在我這個原創人面前。 對於我來說,這就是成功了。
I wish I could tell you that this project transformed the neighborhood and all the indices that we like to rely on: increased jobs, reduced crime, no alcoholism -- but in fact it's more gray than that. "Color(ed) Theory" catalyzed new conversations about the value of blackness. "Color(ed) Theory" made unmistakably visible the uncomfortable questions that institutions and governments have to ask themselves about why they do what they do. They ask equally difficult questions of myself and my neighborhood counterparts about our value systems and what our path to collective agency needs to be. Color gave me freedom in a way that didn't wait for permission or affirmation or inclusion. Color was something that I could rule now. One of the neighborhood members and paint crew members said it best when he said, "This didn't change the neighborhood, it changed people's perceptions about what's possible for their neighborhood," in big and small ways.
我真希望我能說 這個創作改變了這個地區, 改變了那些我們仰賴的數據: 例如增加工作的機會、 降低的犯罪率及酗酒率等等, 但實情比這些更灰暗。 「有色理論」這個藝術工程 催化了黑人價值的新對話。 「有色理論」同時也將 那些令人不自在的問題, 明白地顯露出來, 讓政府機關必須檢討 他們的所作所為。 他們也向我及其他這裡的人 提出了同樣難以回答的問題, 像是我們的價值體系, 及彼此間如何朝一致的方向前進。 顏色在某方面給了我自由, 讓我無需等待批准、 肯定或包容。 顏色是我現在可以主宰的東西, 與我一起油漆的鄰居形容得很貼切, 他說:「我們所做的 並沒有改變這個社區, 但是我們改變了大家 對自己所屬社區潛能的看法,」 在大大小小不同的層面上。
Passersby would ask me, "Why are you painting that house when you know the city's just going to come and tear it down?" At the time, I had no idea, I just knew that I had to do something. I would give anything to better understand color as both a medium and as an inescapable way that I am identified in society. If I have any hope of making the world better, I have to love and leverage both of these ways that I'm understood, and therein lies the value and the hue.
路人會問:「你既然知道市政府 很快就會來拆掉這個房子, 為什麼還要將它油漆上色?」 那當下,我沒有答案。 我只知道我必須做點什麼。 我不惜一切要找到原因, 為什麼顏色除了做為一種媒介, 也同時是一個我在社會上 無所遁逃的身分識別。 假使我有一絲希望讓世界變得更好, 我就得用我所鍾愛的色彩 及我的身分識別去發揮影響力, 因為其中的價值與色彩密不可分。
Thank you.
謝謝大家。
(Applause and cheers)
(掌聲和歡呼)