The brilliant playwright, Adrienne Kennedy, wrote a volume called "People Who Led to My Plays." And if I were to write a volume, it would be called, "Artists Who Have Led My Exhibitions" because my work, in understanding art and in understanding culture, has come by following artists, by looking at what artists mean and what they do and who they are. J.J. from "Good Times," (Applause) significant to many people of course because of "Dy-no-mite," but perhaps more significant as the first, really, black artist on primetime TV. Jean-Michel Basquiat, important to me because [he was] the first black artist in real time that showed me the possibility of who and what I was about to enter into.
卓有才情的剧作家阿德里安娜·肯尼迪 写过一本书 “引领我的话剧的人们”。 如果让我写这么一本书 应该会叫做 “引领我的展览的艺术家们” 因为我的工作 在理解艺术与文化上 是来自于追随艺术家们, 以了解艺术家们的想法 他们在做什么和他们是谁。 杰·杰的《好时光》 (掌声) 对许多人来说意义非凡 正是因为他"太棒了" 然而也许更有意义的是 他实际上是第一位出现在黄金档电视节目上 的黑人艺术家。 让·米歇尔·巴斯奎特, 他对我很重要 因为他是第一位黑人艺术家 随时告诉我 我要去了解的那些人和事情有无可能。
My overall project is about art -- specifically, about black artists -- very generally about the way in which art can change the way we think about culture and ourselves. My interest is in artists who understand and rewrite history, who think about themselves within the narrative of the larger world of art, but who have created new places for us to see and understand. I'm showing two artists here, Glenn Ligon and Kara Walker, two of many who really form for me the essential questions that I wanted to bring as a curator to the world. I was interested in the idea of why and how I could create a new story, a new narrative in art history and a new narrative in the world. And to do this, I knew that I had to see the way in which artists work, understand the artist's studio as a laboratory, imagine, then, reinventing the museum as a think tank and looking at the exhibition as the ultimate white paper -- asking questions, providing the space to look and to think about answers.
我的整个项目都是关于艺术的, 特别是关于黑人艺术家们的, 概括地说 是关于艺术通过何种方式 改变我们对文化和自身 的思考方式。 艺术家们让我很感兴趣 他们了解并改写历史, 他们自我反思 通过那些来自于更广阔的艺术世界 里所讲述的故事, 而不是那些创建新领域 让我们去观看和理解的艺术家们。 在此,我要介绍两位艺术家,格伦·利根和卡尔·沃克。 他们是促成我提出 我一直想提出的重要问题的众多艺术家中的两位, 当我是一名馆长的时候。 我对这些很感兴趣 为什么和怎么样 我能编一个新的故事 一个艺术史上全新的叙事故事 和一个世界上全新的叙事故事。 为了做成这个,我知道 我得去了解艺术家们是如何工作的, 把艺术家们的工作室 当作实验室一样去了解, 然后去想像 将博物馆看成是智库, 将这些展览 视作一张白纸,提出问题 并提供思考 和找寻答案的空间。
In 1994, when I was a curator at the Whitney Museum, I made an exhibition called Black Male. It looked at the intersection of race and gender in contemporary American art. It sought to express the ways in which art could provide a space for dialogue -- complicated dialogue, dialogue with many, many points of entry -- and how the museum could be the space for this contest of ideas. This exhibition included over 20 artists of various ages and races, but all looking at black masculinity from a very particular point of view. What was significant about this exhibition is the way in which it engaged me in my role as a curator, as a catalyst, for this dialogue. One of the things that happened very distinctly in the course of this exhibition is I was confronted with the idea of how powerful images can be in people's understanding of themselves and each other.
1994年, 我曾任惠特尼博物馆馆长时 举办了一个叫做"黑人男性"的展览 这个展览关注 当代美国艺术中 种族与性别的交集。 它试图去解释 艺术通过何种方式 提供了一个对话的平台, 复杂的对话, 有着多个切入点的对话, 还有博物馆是如何成为一个拥有这类对话 的场所。 展览囊括了 超过20名艺术家 各年龄、各种族的都有, 但他们在关注黑人男性方面 有着各自的独特见解。 这次展览的重大意义 是它给予我 我的角色的方式 作为馆长,作为媒介, 在这场对话中。 发生在这次展览中 的一件很重要的事 就是我直接面对 图片能够有多么的震撼 以及人们理解自身和彼此。
I'm showing you two works, one on the right by Leon Golub, one on the left by Robert Colescott. And in the course of the exhibition -- which was contentious, controversial and ultimately, for me, life-changing in my sense of what art could be -- a woman came up to me on the gallery floor to express her concern about the nature of how powerful images could be and how we understood each other. And she pointed to the work on the left to tell me how problematic this image was, as it related, for her, to the idea of how black people had been represented. And she pointed to the image on the right as an example, to me, of the kind of dignity that needed to be portrayed to work against those images in the media. She then assigned these works racial identities, basically saying to me that the work on the right, clearly, was made by a black artist, the work on the left, clearly, by a white artist, when, in effect, that was the opposite case: Bob Colescott, African-American artist; Leon Golub, a white artist. The point of that for me was to say -- in that space, in that moment -- that I really, more than anything, wanted to understand how images could work, how images did work, and how artists provided a space bigger than one that we could imagine in our day-to-day lives to work through these images.
在此我要为你们展示两幅作品,右边的是来自于利昂戈·卢布 左边的来自于罗伯特科·尔斯科特 在这一次的展览中 他们备受争议 最终,对于我来说 改变了生活, 改变了我认为的艺术可能是什么, 画廊里一位向我走来的女士 表达了她对一些本质问题的看法 那就是图片能够有多震撼 以及我们如何能了解彼此。 随后,她指着左边这幅作品 告诉我这幅画有着怎样的问题, 因为对她来说,这幅画涉及了 我们一直以来的是如何描述黑人的。 她又指着右边这幅画 对我说,这是一个有关尊严的例子 需要加以描绘 去对抗大众媒体中(所描绘的)形象。 然后她指出了这些作品作者的人种, 基本上告诉我右边这幅 显然是黑人艺术家画的, 左边那幅明显是白人艺术家的, 实际上 恰恰相反。 鲍勃科·尔斯科特,非裔美国艺术家 利昂·戈卢布,白人艺术家 重点是,对我来说, 在那个地点,那个时间, 我比什么都 想要了解 这些画怎么会产生作用,怎么样产生的作用, 还有艺术家们怎么样通过这些作品 提供了一个比 我们在日常生活中能想象出来的 更广阔的世界。
Fast-forward and I end up in Harlem; home for many of black America, very much the psychic heart of the black experience, really the place where the Harlem Renaissance existed. Harlem now, sort of explaining and thinking of itself in this part of the century, looking both backwards and forwards ... I always say Harlem is an interesting community because, unlike many other places, it thinks of itself in the past, present and the future simultaneously; no one speaks of it just in the now. It's always what it was and what it can be. And, in thinking about that, then my second project, the second question I ask is: Can a museum be a catalyst in a community? Can a museum house artists and allow them to be change agents as communities rethink themselves? This is Harlem, actually, on January 20th, thinking about itself in a very wonderful way.
最终我来到哈莱姆, 这里是许多美国黑人的故乡, 非常适合从心灵上 体验黑人的经历, 整个“哈莱姆文艺复兴”曾存在过这里。 现在的哈莱姆,算是阐释 和思考着它自身,作为这个世纪的一部分, 既有回顾,又有展望。 我总认为哈莱姆是一个有趣的地方 因为,与其他地方不同, 哈莱姆同时思考着它的过去,现在 和将来。 没有人只谈论它的现在。 (人们)总在说它过去如何,今后怎样。 想到这些, 我的第二个项目,也是第二个问题就来了。 博物馆 能在社会中能作为媒介吗? 能让艺术家们住在博物馆里, 允许他们成为改革的媒介 作为社会的反思者吗? 这实际上是,哈莱姆, 在1月20日的 深刻的自我反省。
So I work now at The Studio Museum in Harlem, thinking about exhibitions there, thinking about what it means to discover art's possibility. Now, what does this mean to some of you? In some cases, I know that many of you are involved in cross-cultural dialogues, you're involved in ideas of creativity and innovation. Think about the place that artists can play in that -- that is the kind of incubation and advocacy that I work towards, in working with young, black artists. Think about artists, not as content providers, though they can be brilliant at that, but, again, as real catalysts.
因此,现在我在哈莱姆的画室博物馆工作 想着那里的展览, 思索着它对于 找寻着艺术中的可能性的意义。 现在,这些对于你们有什么意义呢? 有些情况下,我知道许多人 融入跨文化的对话之中, 你融入在创造和革新的思想中。 想想属于艺术家们的地方吧。 这正是我所酝酿和宣传的 和那些年轻的黑人艺术家们一起工作。 想想那些艺术家们,别把他们当成画作的提供者, 尽管他们也相当了不起, 但是,再想想,他们作为真实的媒介。
The Studio Museum was founded in the late 60s. And I bring this up because it's important to locate this practice in history. To look at 1968, in the incredible historic moment that it is, and think of the arc that has happened since then, to think of the possibilities that we are all privileged to stand in today and imagine that this museum that came out of a moment of great protest and one that was so much about examining the history and the legacy of important African-American artists to the history of art in this country like Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden.
画室博物馆建于60年代末。 我把它建起来,因为在历史上记下这一事件 很重要, 1968年 一个令人难以置信的历史时刻 想想自那时发生的一切, 想想可能性,我们 今天有幸健在的可能性, 想象一下这个博物馆 从伟大的抗议声中诞生, 它对研究历史 十分的重要 也是这个国家艺术史上 非裔美国艺术家们的重要遗产 像雅各布·劳伦斯,诺曼·刘易斯, 罗马勒·毕尔登。
And then, of course, to bring us to today. In 1975, Muhammad Ali gave a lecture at Harvard University. After his lecture, a student got up and said to him, "Give us a poem." And Mohammed Ali said, "Me, we." A profound statement about the individual and the community. The space in which now, in my project of discovery, of thinking about artists, of trying to define what might be black art cultural movement of the 21st century. What that might mean for cultural movements all over this moment, the "me, we" seems incredibly prescient totally important.
当然 也带给了我们今天。 1975年,穆罕默德·阿里 在哈佛大学举办了一场讲座。 讲座后,一位学生站起来对他说, “给我们做首诗吧” 于是,默罕默德·阿里说:“我,我们” 这是一份关于个人和社会的郑重宣言, 关于现在的这个空间, 这个我的项目所发现的,我的项目所关注的艺术家们 及我的项目正试着明确 黑人艺术文化运动 在21世纪有可能是什么。 那对于此刻所有的文化运动来说 可能意味这什么, “我,我们”这首诗看起来 高瞻远瞩 非常重要。
To this end, the specific project that has made this possible for me is a series of exhibitions, all titled with an F -- Freestyle, Frequency and Flow -- which have set out to discover and define the young, black artists working in this moment who I feel strongly will continue to work over the next many years. This series of exhibitions was made specifically to try and question the idea of what it would mean now, at this point in history, to see art as a catalyst; what it means now, at this point in history, as we define and redefine culture, black culture specifically in my case, but culture generally. I named this group of artists around an idea, which I put out there called post-black, really meant to define them as artists who came and start their work now, looking back at history but start in this moment, historically.
最后 对于我,使这一切成为可能的具体项目 是一系列的展览, 所有的名称里都带有F这个字母的展览, “自由式”(Freestyle)、“频率”(Frequency)和“流动”(Flow) 这些展览已开始发现 并且确定了 一些现在活跃在艺术界的年轻黑人艺术家们 我强烈认为他们 将要继续活跃好多年。 这一系列展览 专门特别地 尝试和质疑 一个想法,那就是现在把艺术看作媒介 在现在这个历史时刻, 意味着什么, 在这一历史时刻,有什么意义。 就在我们定义并重新定义文化的时候, 黑人文化,特别是在我的项目中的, 而不是一般的文化。 我给这群艺术家起了个名字 依照的是我在这里说的这些想法 叫“后黑派”。 为了定义那些 前来开始工作的艺术家们, 他们一边回顾历史,一边在这一历史性时刻开始工作,。
It is really in this sense of discovery that I have a new set of questions that I'm asking. This new set of questions is: What does it mean, right now, to be African-American in America? What can artwork say about this? Where can a museum exist as the place for us all to have this conversation? Really, most exciting about this is thinking about the energy and the excitement that young artists can bring. Their works for me are about, not always just simply about the aesthetic innovation that their minds imagine, that their visions create and put out there in the world, but more, perhaps, importantly, through the excitement of the community that they create as important voices that would allow us right now to understand our situation, as well as in the future. I am continually amazed by the way in which the subject of race can take itself in many places that we don't imagine it should be. I am always amazed by the way in which artists are willing to do that in their work. It is why I look to art. It's why I ask questions of art. It is why I make exhibitions.
这一发现确实很有意义 它让我提出了一系新的问题。 新的问题是: 此时此刻, 在美国,作为一名非裔美国人意味着什么? 对此,艺术品可以表达什么? 博物馆应该建在什么地方, 作为一个让我们大家 进行艺术对话的场所? 真的,最让人激动的是 想到那些由年轻艺术家们带来的 活力和激情。 对我来说这些艺术家的作品 不是经常,只是简单地 美学创新 他们想法新奇,视角独特 面向世界, 但是,也许更重要的是 通过这种激情 这种艺术家们建立自己社区作为重要声音的激情 使得我们了解现状, 还有未来。 还让我感到吃惊的是 通过这种方法 种族的话题 可以出现在许多 我们没想到的地方。 还让我吃惊的是 艺术家们工作 所采取的方式。 这是我为何关注艺术的原因。 这是我为可质疑艺术的原因。 这是我为何举办展览的原因。
Now, this exhibition, as I said, 40 young artists done over the course of eight years, and for me it's about considering the implications. It's considering the implications of what this generation has to say to the rest of us. It's considering what it means for these artists to be both out in the world as their work travels, but in their communities as people who are seeing and thinking about the issues that face us. It's also about thinking about the creative spirit and nurturing it, and imagining, particularly in urban America, about the nurturing of the spirit.
现在,这个展览,正如我所说的, 花费了40位青年艺术家8年的时间, 对我来说,它是经过深思远虑的。 这分析了 这一代人要对我们其余的人说些什么的影响 也涉及对这些艺术家而言这意味着什么 他们既要随着作品走向世界 也身处于现实社会中, 就像人们观察并思考 我们所面临的那些事情。 这个展览也对 创新精神以及如何培养它进行了思考。 想想,特别是在美国城区 培养这种精神。
Now, where, perhaps, does this end up right now? For me, it is about re-imagining this cultural discourse in an international context. So the last iteration of this project has been called Flow, with the idea now of creating a real network of artists around the world; really looking, not so much from Harlem and out, but looking across, and Flow looked at artists all born on the continent of Africa. And as many of us think about that continent and think about what if means to us all in the 21st century, I have begun that looking through artists, through artworks, and imagining what they can tell us about the future, what they tell us about our future, and what they create in their sense of offering us this great possibility of watching that continent emerge as part of our bigger dialogue. So, what do I discover
嗯,到哪里了,或许,现在要结束了? 对我来说,或许应该在国际背景下 重新思考这一文化交流 因此这个项目的最后环节 叫做“流动” 这个想法想要创建 一个全球艺术家的 真实网络, 真的去看,不仅是哈莱姆内外 而是关注全世界的。 “流动”环节关注所有出生在非洲大陆的艺术家们 正如我们之中许多人思考这片大陆 思考在21世纪 这片大陆对于我们意味着什么, 我开始关注 通过艺术家,通过艺术作品 去想象他们要告诉我们一个怎样的未来 他们要告诉我们关于我们的未来, 还有他们创造了什么 使我们有更多机会了解 这片成为 更旷阔的对话的一部分的大陆。 因此,当我欣赏这些画作的时候
when I look at artworks? What do I think about when I think about art? I feel like the privilege I've had as a curator is not just the discovery of new works, the discovery of exciting works. But, really, it has been what I've discovered about myself and what I can offer in the space of an exhibition, to talk about beauty, to talk about power, to talk about ourselves, and to talk and speak to each other. That's what makes me get up every day and want to think about this generation of black artists and artists around the world.
我发现了什么? 当我思考艺术的时候 我想到了什么? 我觉得作为馆长的权利 不仅是发现新的画作, 发现已经存在的作品, 而应该是, 对自身的探索, 以及将展览作为平台 可以提供什么, 去探讨美、去探讨力量, 去探讨我们自身, 以及彼此之间的交流。 这使得我每天一起床 就开始思考 这一代黑人艺术家以及世界上的艺术家们。
Thank you. (Applause)
谢谢