In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism
在中国的新革命中，艺术欢迎资本主义

SHANGHAI, Jan. 3 — After the peppered beef carpaccio and before the pan-fried sea bass there were raucous toasts and the clinking of wine glasses in the V.I.P. room of New Heights, a jazzy restaurant in this city’s most luxurious location, overlooking the Bund.
上海，1月3日－ New Heights是上海最奢华地区可以远眺外滩的一家爵士餐厅，餐厅贵宾室里，先上了胡椒牛肉，在上煎黑鲈鱼之前，摆出了香脆的烤面包和精致的红酒杯。

Wang Guangyi, one of China’s pioneering contemporary artists, was there. So were Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi and 20 other well-known Chinese artists and their guests, many of whom had been flown in from Beijing to celebrate the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Zeng Hao, another rising star in China’s bubbly art scene.
其中有中国当代前卫艺术家王广义，还有张晓刚、方力钧、岳民君、曾梵志及其他20位知名的中国艺术家和他们的客人。很多人是专程从北京飞来庆祝曽浩新作个展的。曽浩是中国泡沫艺术界一颗正在升起的新星。

“We’ve had opening dinners before,” said the Shanghai artist Zhou Tiehai, sipping Chilean red wine, “but nothing quite like this until very recently.”
“我们之前已经举行了开幕晚宴，”上海艺术家周铁海抿了一口智利红酒说道，“但只在最近才有这样的阵容。”

The dinner, held on a recent Saturday night in a restaurant located on the top floor of a historic building that also houses an Armani store and the Shanghai Gallery of Art, was symbolic of the soaring fortunes of Chinese contemporary art.
最近的一个周六晚宴在一栋古香古色的建筑顶楼的餐厅举行。这座建筑里开着阿玛尼专卖店和上海美术馆，是中国当代艺术财富飞速上升的标志。

In 2006 Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the world’s biggest auction houses, sold $190 million worth of Asian contemporary art, most of it Chinese, in a series of record-breaking auctions in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2004 the two houses combined sold $22 million in Asian contemporary art.
2006年，全球最大的拍卖行，索斯比和克里斯蒂拍卖行卖出了价值一亿九千万美元的亚洲当代艺术品，其中大部分来自中国，在纽约、伦敦和香港的拍卖活动中打破了一系列记录。2004年，这两家拍卖行联合拍出了价值2200万美元的亚洲艺术品。

The climax came at a Beijing auction in November when a painting by Liu Xiaodong, 43, sold to a Chinese entrepreneur for $2.7 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece by a Chinese artist who began working after 1979, when loosened economic restrictions spurred a resurgence in contemporary art.
11月，43岁的刘晓东的一幅绘画作品在北京以270万美元的价格拍给一位中国企业家，拍卖活动迎来了高潮。这是1979年放宽经济限制唤醒了当代艺术后，中国当代艺术家作品的最高成交价格。

That price put Mr. Liu in the company of the few living artists, including Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, whose work has sold for $2 million or more at auction.
这一价格使刘先生跻身于达明·赫斯特（Damien Hirst）、杰夫·孔斯（Jeff Koons）等为数不多的仍然在世的艺术大家之列，他们的作品通常在拍卖会上以200万美元以上的价格成交。

“This has come out of nowhere,” said Henry Howard-Sneyd, global head of Asian arts at Sotheby’s, which, like Christie’s, has just started a division focusing on contemporary Chinese art.
“这种情况是中国特有现象，” 亨利·霍华德－斯尼德（Henry Howard-Sneyd） 说道，索斯比拍卖行负责亚洲艺术的全球主管，索斯比拍卖行紧跟克里斯蒂拍卖行，刚刚在中国开设了一个分部，专门处理当代中国艺术品。

With auction prices soaring, hundreds of new studios, galleries and private art museums are opening in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Chinese auction houses that once specialized in traditional ink paintings are now putting contemporary experimental artworks on the block.
随着拍卖价格的飞速上扬，数以百计的画室、画廊和私人美术馆纷纷在北京和上海这样的大城市开张。一贯专营传统水墨画的中国拍卖行，如今也开始在拍卖作品中加入当代实验艺术作品。

Western galleries, especially in Europe, are rushing to sign up unknown painters; artists a year out of college are selling photographic works for as much as $10,000 each; well-known painters have yearlong waiting lists; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Pompidou Center in Paris are considering opening branches in China.
西方美术馆，尤其是欧洲的美术馆正赶着与不知名的画家签约。大学毕业才一年的艺术家以差不多10,000美元一幅的价格出售摄影作品。有名点的画家手中的订单排到一年以后了。古根汉博物馆（Solomon R. Guggenhein）和巴黎蓬皮杜艺术中心正考虑在中国开设分支机构。

“What is happening in China is what happened in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century,” said Michael Goedhuis, a collector and art dealer specializing in Asian contemporary art who has galleries in London and New York. “New ground is being broken. There’s a revolution under way.”
迈克尔·格德会斯（Michael Goedhuis）是一位艺术收藏家，专门从事亚洲当代艺术品生意，在伦敦和纽约都有自己的美术馆。他说：“中国正在发生的一切就是欧洲20世纪初所经历的，人们正在开辟新的疆土，一场革命拉开了帷幕。”

But the auction frenzy has also sparked debate here about whether sales are artificially inflating prices and encouraging speculators, rather than real collectors, to enter the art market.
然而，拍卖的狂热也引发了的争论，买卖是否人为影响了价格，鼓励了投机商人而非真正的收藏家投身艺术品市场。

Auction houses “sell art like people sell cabbage,” said Weng Ling, the director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art. “They are not educating the public or helping artists develop. Many of them know nothing about art.”
上海美术馆馆长翁伶说，拍卖行“像卖白菜一样卖艺术品 。他们不是在教育大众或帮助艺术家自我发展。他们当中的大部分人对艺术一无所知。”

But the boom in Chinese contemporary art — reinforced by record sales in New York last year — has also brought greater recognition to a group of experimental artists who grew up during China’s brutal Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).
但是去年纽约的创纪录销售促进了中国当代艺术的飞速发展，同时也使一大批在中国野蛮的文化大革命中成长起来的实验艺术家得到了认可。

After the 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square, avant-garde art was often banned from being shown here because it was deemed hostile or anti-authoritarian. Through the 1990s many artists struggled to earn a living, considering themselves lucky to sell a painting for $500.
1989年政府镇压天安门广场之后，前卫艺术因被视为带有敌对或反政府性质也被从此禁止了。整个90年代，许多艺术家忙于养家糊口，一幅画卖到500美元就觉得很幸运的了。

That has all changed. These days China’s leading avant-garde artists have morphed into multi-millionaires who show up at exhibitions wearing Gucci and Ferragamo.
一切都改变了。这些年来，中国主流前卫艺术家已经摇身一变，成为身穿古琦和菲拉格慕出现在画展上的千万富翁。

Wang Guangyi, best-known for his Great Criticism series of Cultural Revolution-style paintings emblazoned with the names of popular Western brands, like Coke, Swatch and Gucci, drives a Jaguar and owns a 10,000-square-foot luxury villa on the outskirts of Beijing.
王广义最著名的作品要算他文革式大批判系列画作，上面印有西方知名品牌的商标，如可乐、斯沃琪和古琦等，开着美洲豹，在北京郊区拥有一千平方英尺的豪华别墅。

Yue Minjun, who makes legions of colorful smiling figures, has a walled-off suburban Beijing compound with an 8,000-square-foot home and studio. Fang Lijun, a “Cynical Realist” painter whose work captures artists’ post-Tiananmen disillusionment, owns six restaurants in Beijing and operates a small hotel in western Yunnan province.
创作了一系列彩色微笑人物像的岳民君在北京郊区拥有一座四周围合的房子，里面有他8000平方英尺的家和画室。愤青现实主义画家方力钧，在他的作品中刻画了艺术家的后天安门幻灭感。在北京，他拥有六个餐厅；在中国西部云南省还开了一家小酒店。

If China’s art scene can be likened to a booming stock market, Zhang Xiaogang, 48, is its Google. More than any other Chinese artist Mr. Zhang, with his huge paintings depicting family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has captured the imagination of international collectors. Prices for his work have skyrocketed at auction over the last two years.
如果中国的艺术情形可以比喻为一个新兴的股票市场，那么48岁的张晓刚就是这个股市的谷歌了。与其他中国艺术家不同，张先生依据文化大革命期间的家庭照片创作了大量画作，引起了国际收藏家的无限遐想。近两年，他作品的拍卖价格直线飙升。

When his work “Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120” sold for $979,000 at Sotheby’s auction in March, many art insiders predicted the market had topped out and prices would plummet within months.
当他的作品《血统系列：第120号同志》 在3月的索斯比拍卖会上以979,000美元的价格成交，许多艺术业内知情人士预测市场已经到顶，几个月内价格就会大幅下挫。

But in October, the British collector Charles Saatchi bought another of Mr. Zhang’s pieces at Christie’s in London for $1.5 million. Then in November at Christie’s Hong Kong auction, Mr. Zhang’s 1993 “Tiananmen Square” sold to a private collector for $2.3 million. According to Artnet.com, which tracks auction prices, 16 of Mr. Zhang’s works have sold for $500,000 or more during the past two years.
然而10月份，英国收藏家查尔斯·萨尔特奇（Charles Saatchi）在伦敦克丽斯汀拍卖会上以150万的价格购得张先生另外一幅画作。11月的香港克丽斯汀拍卖会上，张先生的1993“天安门广场”以230万美元的价格售给了一位私人收藏家。根据追踪拍卖价格的Artnet.com，近两年张先生的16幅画作以50万以上的价格卖出。

Are such prices justified? Uli Sigg, the former Swiss ambassador to China and perhaps the largest collector of Chinese contemporary art with more than 1,500 pieces, calls the market frothy but not finished.
这些价格合理吗？前瑞士驻中国大使乌利·希克（Uli Sigg）拥有1500件中国当代艺术作品，可能是此类艺术品的最大收藏家，他认为现在的市场处于泡沫状态，但并没有完结。

“I don’t see anything at the moment that will stop the rise in prices,” he said. “More and more people are flocking to the market.”
“眼下，我看不到有什么东西可以抑制价格上扬，”他说。“越来越多的人涌入艺术市场。”

Mr. Goedhuis insists that this is the beginning of an even bigger boom in Chinese contemporary art.
格德会斯认为这才是中国当代艺术进一步繁荣的开始。

“I don’t think there’s a bubble,” he said. “There’s a lot of speculation but no bubble. That’s the paradox. In China there are only a handful of buyers — 10, 20, 30 — out of a billion people. You only need another 10 to come in and that will jack up prices.”
“我不认为这里有泡沫，”他说。“这里存在大量炒作，但并没有泡沫。这是自相矛盾的。中国大买家很少，十多亿人中也许只有10个、20个或30个这样的大买家。只需要再有10个这样的买家，价格还会抬高。”

He added: “Another astonishing fact is there is not a single museum in the West that has committed itself to buying Chinese art. It’s just starting to happen. Guggenheim, the Tate Modern, MoMA, they’re all looking.”
他还说：“另一个使人震惊的事实是，西方没有一家博物馆决心购买中国艺术作品。这才刚刚开始。古根汉（Guggenheim）, 塔特现代博物馆（the Tate Modern）, 美国大都市现代美术馆（MoMA）还都在观望。

Representatives from those museums, as well as others, have made scouting missions to China. A growing number of international collectors are looking at Chinese art too.
那些博物馆的代表还有其他人物，带着寻宝使命来到中国。越来越多的国际收藏家也在关注着中国艺术。

“After the 2005 Sotheby’s show I just jumped in,” said Didier Hirsch, a French-born California business executive who has long collected American and European contemporary art. “People said the next big run-up in prices would be at Sotheby’s in March so I said, ‘Now or never.’ ” Mr. Hirsch purchased nearly his entire collection — about 40 works — by phone after doing research on the Internet. He said he went first for what he called the titans — the original group of post-’79 painters — including Wang Guangyi and Liu Xiaodong.
迪迪埃·赫希（Didier Hirsch）是一名法裔加利福尼亚商务主管，长期从事美国和欧洲当代艺术品的收藏。他说，“2005年的索斯比拍卖会后，我便投身其中了，有人说价格下一次大涨将出现在3月的索斯比拍卖会上，因此我说，‘机会不等人。’ Hirsch先生新近购买了他所有藏品—40件，都是在因特网上做了相关研究后，以电话方式购得的。他说他先从79年以后开始创作的原创新画家入手，如王广义和刘小东。

Some critics here say the focus on prices has led to a decline in creativity as artists knock off variations of their best-known work rather than exploring new territory. Some are even employing teams of workers in assembly-line fashion.
一些评论家说对价格的关注已经导致了创造力的衰退，因为艺术家们宁可对自己的知名作品稍作修改，也不愿意再开拓新的领域。有些艺术家甚至雇用了成组的工人以流水线方式制作。

Christopher Phillips, a curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, has become a regular visitor to China, scouting young artists for the center and other places. On a recent trip “I went to visit the studio of a well-known Beijing painter,” Mr. Phillips said. “The artist wasn’t there, but I saw a group of canvases being painted by a team of young women who seemed to be just in from the countryside. I found it a little disconcerting.”
纽约国际摄影中心馆长克里斯托弗·菲利普斯（Christopher Phillips），经常来中国访问，为摄影中心和其他机构寻找年轻艺术家。在其最近的一次行程中，菲利普斯先生说：“我参观了一位知名的北京画家的画室，那个画家不在，但我看到了一群好像刚从乡下出来的年轻妇女正在画一批油画。我觉得有些不安。”

There are also complaints that some artists are ignoring international standards by selling works directly into the auction market, rather than selling first to collectors. And many experts here say that some gallery officials and artists are sending representatives to the auctions to bid on their own works to prop up prices, or “protect” the prices of some rising stars.
人们常常抱怨一些艺术家无视国际标准，直接将作品卖给拍卖市场，而不是首先卖给收藏者。许多专家认为，一些美术馆的高层和艺术家派代表去参加拍卖会，竞拍他们自己的作品，从而维持价格或“保护”一些后起之秀的作品价格。

But Lorenz Helbling, director of the ShanghART Gallery here, said Chinese artists continue to produce an impressive array of works, and that talk about the market being overrun by commercialism is exaggerated.
然而上海美术馆馆长洛伦兹·黑尔布林（Lorenz Helbling）认为，中国艺术家会继续创作出一系列给人留下深刻印象的作品，而有关市场因商业化而泛滥的说法也是言过其辞的。

“Things are much better than they were 10 years ago,” he said. “Back then many artists were commissioned to simply paint dozens of paintings for a gallery owner, who went out and sold those works. Now these artists are thinking more deeply about their work because they’re finally getting the recognition they deserve.”
“现在比起10年前，情况要好得多了，”他说。“那时候，许多艺术家只能受雇为美术馆主创作几十幅画作，然后这些馆主再将画作卖出。现在，这些艺术家更关注自己的作品，因为他们会得到应有的认可。