他她話題:畫家張曉剛的創作危機

For the past year, China's most expensive living artist hasn't been allowed to paint, doctor's orders.

去年一年，中國當今身價最高的畫家沒有得到作畫的許可，發出這道禁令的人是醫生。

Zhang Xiaogang, age 54, a Beijing-based painter whose hypnotic portraits have topped $10 million at auction, recently suffered a pair of heart attacks, and his doctors told him - for the first time in his three-decade career - to rest.

家住北京的張曉剛現年54歲，他那面無表情的人物肖像畫拍賣價已經超過了1000萬美元。最近兩次心臟病發作之後，醫生要求他休息──這是他30年畫家生涯中的第一次。

Few artists embody China's art boom better than Mr. Zhang, who grew up amid the Cultural Revolution and gained fame for his large, haunting depictions of families dressed in Mao jackets and comrade's caps. Yet his desire to keep breakneck pace with China's developing art scene has taken a toll.

很少有畫家能比張曉剛更好地代表中國美術的繁榮發展。他生長在文革時期，因創作了給人深刻印象的身着中山裝、頭戴舊軍帽的全家福畫像而一舉成名。然而，他意欲緊跟中國美術界發展的願望也讓他付出了代價。

Mr. Zhang still spends his days at his soaring studio in a traditional village on the city's outskirts. His major collectors include former Swiss ambassador Uli Sigg, Beijing entrepreneur Liu Lan and Chinese-Indonesian farming tycoon Budi Tek. His earliest works fetch higher sums than ever at auction: In April 2011, 'Eternal Love,' a 1988 painting that he originally sold for $2,000, resold at Sotheby's Hong Kong for $10.2 million, an auction record for Chinese contemporary art.

張曉剛現在還是生活在北京郊外一個傳統村莊裏一個有着高聳屋頂的工作室中，收藏他作品的人主要有前瑞士大使烏里•希克（Uli Sigg）、北京企業家劉蘭、以及印尼華人農業大亨餘德耀（Budi Tek）。他最早期的作品在拍賣場賣出了前所未有的高價：一幅創作於1988年名爲《永恆的愛》（Eternal Love）的作品，當初售價2,000美元，2011年4月在香港蘇富比拍賣行（Sotheby's Hong Kong）再次拍賣時以1020萬美元的價格成交，創造了中國當代美術作品的最高拍賣價格紀錄。

But he said he's still learning how to navigate the pressures and expectations of the job. Six weeks after that record sale, Mr. Zhang was sitting in his studio with his 18-year-old daughter when he clutched his chest, struggling to breathe. Soon after, he underwent emergency bypass surgery to repair a blocked artery in his heart, his second heart surgery in 10 months. Afterward, his doctor told the artist he had to dramatically alter his lifestyle: No more whiskey or cigarettes (he was smoking two packs of Zhongnanhai a day) and no work-related stress for a year.

但是，張曉剛說他仍然在學習如何駕馭工作帶來的壓力與希望。就在那次創紀錄的拍賣之後六週，他在工作室裏手抓胸口、呼吸困難，當時他18歲的女兒跟他在一起。很快，他被送去急救，做了心臟搭橋手術，以修復堵塞了的心臟動脈血管。這是他在10個月的時間裏做的第二次心臟手術。後來，醫生告訴這位畫家，他必須徹底改變生活方式：戒酒戒菸（他當時一天要抽兩包中南海），一年之內不能承受任何工作上的壓力。

When artists break out in art hubs like New York or London, they can usually look to experienced galleries to broker their sales and help manage their careers. China didn't have a single privately run art gallery when Mr. Zhang got his start in the early 1980s. For a long stretch, he single-handedly managed his own career, juggling demands from dealers and collectors and occasionally making artworks on commission. (Mr. Zhang is now represented by Pace Gallery.)

當畫家們來到紐約或倫敦這樣的藝術中心的時候，他們通常可以找到有資歷的畫廊，讓其充當經紀人代理自己作品的出售並幫助自己進行職業謀劃。20世紀80年代初期張曉剛的事業剛剛起步時，中國還沒有一傢俬人經營的畫廊。很長一段時間，他都是單打獨鬥地經營着自己的職業，應付藝術品經紀人、收藏家的需求，偶爾也受人之託進行藝術創作。（現在給張曉剛做代理的是佩斯畫廊（Pace Gallery）。）

Now, his health scare has given him an excuse to slow down and reassess his art. Of his roughly 600 oil paintings, a third are part of 'Bloodlines,' a series he began in the early 1990s inspired by the kind of quasi-patriotic family portraits that were popular throughout China during the Cultural Revolution. In Mr. Zhang's versions, these clusters of men, women and children appear glassy-eyed and unsmiling - bound by blood but possibly little else. Mr. Zhang has become indelibly linked to this series, and he continues to paint these works on occasion, even though they serve to criticize China's Mao era more than its current political situation. But there are signs that demand could be tapering off: Dealers say an early 'Bloodline' from 1994 can sell for as much as $8 million, but his recent versions of couples have sold for around $1.5 million. Mr. Zhang said some of his stress has come from his attempts to find his next big idea.

現在，健康上的顧慮讓他找到理由放慢節奏，重新審視自己的藝術。在他的大約600幅油畫中，三分之一屬於他在20世紀90年代初期開始創作的“血緣”系列作品，激發他靈感的是文革期間在中國各地普遍流行的愛國式的全家福照。在張曉剛演繹的全家福中，一組組男人、女人和孩子都是目光呆滯、不苟言笑的表情──除血緣之外也許沒別的東西把他們綁定在一起。張曉剛和這一系列的作品已經永遠聯繫在一起，他偶爾還繼續進行這類創作，儘管這些畫對毛澤東時代的中國的批判甚於目前的政局。但是對這類作品的需求有逐漸減少的跡象：藝術品經紀人說一幅1994年創作的早期“血緣”系列油畫可以賣到800萬美元，但是他最近創作的幾幅售價都只在150萬美元左右。張曉剛說他的壓力部分來自於他試圖找到下一個大創意的努力。

Mr. Tek, a collector who has paid as much as $6.7 million for Mr. Zhang's work, said, 'Getting a Zhang Xiaogang is like buying a historic movement frozen in art - he's classic. But he should slow down on the 'Bloodlines' because they're not as relevant anymore.'

收藏家餘德耀已經花了670萬美元購買張曉剛的作品，他說，“買張曉剛的畫就好像把凝固在一幅藝術品中的歷史運動買回了家──他的作品很經典。但是在創作‘血緣’系列作品方面他應該慢下來，因爲那些畫與現在的時代不再有那麼多相關性了。”

During his hiatus from painting, Mr. Zhang is turning to a different medium: bronze. He is casting groups of large figures in bronze and will paint them by hand - a nod to the colorful polychrome statues that popped up throughout ancient Egypt and Ming-era China. Though he has dabbled in bronze occasionally, he has never tried this technique before. The figures themselves comprise his usual cast of 'Bloodlines' characters - a boy in glasses, a girl with pigtails. Gary Xu, a cultural historian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has seen the clay models and calls them 'fantastic.'

在他暫時脫離創作油畫的間隙裏，張曉剛開始轉向一種不同的創作媒介：銅。他現在正在鑄造一組組大型人物青銅雕塑，隨後還要進行手工着色──這是對遠至古埃及近至中國明朝的彩色雕塑的致意。雖然他曾偶爾涉獵過用銅創作，但是之前從來沒有嘗試過這種技法。雕塑的形象就是他通常在“血緣”系列裏畫的人物──比如一名戴眼鏡的男生和一名扎小辮的女生。伊利諾伊大學厄巴納-香檳分校（University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign）的文化歷史學家加里•許（Gary Xu）在看過這些雕塑的黏土模型之後稱這些東西“奇妙無比”。

Mr. Zhang is part of an elite group of painters - including Fang Lijun, Zeng Fanzhi, Yang Shaobin, and Yue Minjun - who were once ignored by China's political leaders but are now hailed as cultural success stories. Beginning in the late 1980s, they experimented with modernism, expressionism and Pop at a time when Soviet Realism still held sway. Eventually, they helped kick-start a lasting conversation about what China's new art could look like. And as China's economy skyrocketed, so have their asking prices and reputations. Now, film director Zhang Yang said, these artists are 'better known in China than most movie stars.'

張曉剛是一個精英畫家羣體中的一員──這個羣體還包括方力鈞、曾梵志、楊少斌和嶽敏君在內。中國的政界領導層曾經無人過問他們，但是現在他們卻被作爲文化成功的範例而得到褒獎。在上世紀80年代末蘇聯現實主義還佔主導地位的時期，他們開始嘗試現代主義、表現主義和波普（Pop）風格的繪畫。最後，他們大力促成了一場曠日持久的討論，話題是新時代中國藝術應該如何定位。隨着中國經濟的迅猛發展，這些畫家的要價和聲譽也跟着高歌猛進。電影導演張揚說，如今，這些畫家“在中國的知名度超過了大多數電影明星。”

Mr. Zhang's friends say he has never felt entirely comfortable in the role of celebrity. He doesn't wear designer clothing, preferring jeans and Converse sneakers. For his part, he said one reason he started drinking heavily years ago was so he could shake off his natural shyness.

張曉剛的朋友們說，他對自己的名人身份一直都感到不太自在。他不穿名牌服裝，喜歡牛仔服和匡威（Converse）帆布運動鞋。據他本人所言，他多年前開始過度飲酒的原因是喝酒可以讓他擺脫口腆的天性。

In May, Mr. Zhang sat in a hotel overlooking the vast Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which had become a warren of art-filled booths for the region's major contemporary-art fair, Art HK. Glancing at the crowds, he said, 'You have to use your imagination to conjure how it was before all this.'

5月，張曉剛坐在可以俯瞰香港會展中心（Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre）的一家酒店裏，會展中心此時已是香港當代藝術的重要展會──香港藝博會（Art HK）──的展覽場館。他俯視着人羣說，“你得施展想象力才能想象得出以前是什麼樣子。”

Anyone who visits Mr. Zhang's Beijing studio will likely notice his 'idea board.' This wall-size panel is covered with items he has pinned up for inspiration - from photos of artists he admires, like Franz Kafka and singer Sinead O'Connor, to movie-ticket stubs and photos of his first studio apartment in Kunming, the city in southwestern Yunnan province where he was born in 1958.

凡是到訪張曉剛北京工作室的人都可能會注意到他的“點子板”，這塊 面大小的板子上全是他爲獲取靈感而釘在上面的東西──從他敬仰的藝術家的照片（比如弗蘭茲•卡夫卡（Franz Kafka），歌手西尼德•奧康娜（Sinead O'Connor））到電影票存根以及他在昆明的第一間一室公寓的照片，1958年他出生於位於中國西南雲南省的昆明。

Memory is the central theme of Mr. Zhang's art - what we choose to remember, forget or distort. In 1966, Mr. Zhang was 8 years old and living with his family in Chengdu in southwestern China when Mao Zedong ushered in the Cultural Revolution, a decadelong attempt to rid China of anything antique or foreign. Schools were shut down and his parents were sent away to separate work camps to be 're-educated,' leaving him and his three young brothers to fend largely for themselves. Their mother, who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic, left them pencils and a sheaf of paper with instructions to doodle whenever they felt bored or tempted to roam outside.

張曉剛藝術創作的核心主題是記憶──我們選擇回首、忘卻或者扭曲的東西。1966年，毛澤東發動了文化大革命，一場長達10年時間旨在消滅所有舊有及外來事物的運動。此時張曉剛八歲，和家人一起生活在中國西南的成都。學校都停課了，他的父母被送到不同的幹校去接受“再教育”，留下他和他的三個弟弟，他們的生活基本上只能自己來料理。他們的母親（後來被診斷出患有精神分裂症）給他們留下了鉛筆和一大捆紙，讓他們在感到無聊或想要出去遊蕩的時候就在紙上塗鴉。

Eventually, Mr. Zhang befriended a former art teacher who taught him the basics of watercolors. At 17, he took his pens and paper with him when he was assigned by the government to plant potatoes and wheat at a mountainside re-education farm. By the end of his two-year stint, a local party official had pulled him from the fields to paint revolutionary slogans. 'Art helped me transcend the miserable situation,' he said.

最終，張曉剛和一位曾經當過美術老師的人交上了朋友，這位老師教了他水彩畫的基本功。17歲那年，當政府分配他到一個山區再教育農場去種土豆和小麥時，他帶上了紙和筆。兩年期滿的時候，一名地方黨政官員把他從地裏抽調出來負責革命標語的繪製。他說，“藝術幫助我擺脫了痛苦的境遇。”

When China reopened its colleges in 1977, Mr. Zhang was one of only two students in his province admitted to the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing. He was a decade younger than his 20 classmates. There, he first encountered images of Western art - Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, modern abstract painters - along with Soviet Realists. 'It was like going from hell to heaven,' he said.

當中國的大學1977年恢復招生的時候，張曉剛是全省僅有的兩名被位於重慶的四川美術學院（Sichuan Fine Arts Institute）錄取的學生之一，他比其他20名同班同學年輕10歲。在那裏，他第一次看到了西方藝術的影像──文森特•梵高（Vincent van Gogh）、保羅•高更（Paul Gauguin）、現代抽象主義畫家──還有蘇聯現實主義畫家。他說，“那感覺就像從地獄走進了天堂。”

After graduation, though, he spent a decade in an existential, creative funk. He married an outgoing woman in Chengdu who loved rock music and later owned a bar. He spent his days teaching art at his alma mater and his nights drinking. His mother's schizophrenia worsened. At age 26, he suffered a gastric hemorrhage and he was hospitalized for two months.

然而，畢業後，他有10年時間是在小心翼翼的生活和創作中度過的。他在成都與一名性格外向的女人結了婚，她喜歡搖滾樂，後來開了間酒吧。白天，他在自己的母校教美術，晚上則飲酒貪杯。他母親的精神病惡化了。26歲的時候，他得了胃出血，住了兩個月的醫院。

Weng Ling, artistic director of New York's China Center, met him in Chongqing in 1986. He was an 'angry artist, writing poems and painting pieces that looked like sad songs,' she said. Leng Lin, an art-history student at the time who has since become his dealer at Pace, also saw a show of Mr. Zhang's art around that time and said the artist was primarily painting figures in toga-like robes surrounded by symbols culled from pagan, Christian and Buddhist faiths. 'He was wrestling with Europe,' Mr. Leng said.

紐約中國中心（China Center）的藝術總監翁菱1986年在重慶與張曉剛會面。她說，他是“一名激憤的藝術家，寫了很多詩，畫的畫就像一曲曲悲歌。”冷林當時是一名學習藝術史的學生，後來成了張曉剛在佩斯畫廊的經紀人。他也曾參觀過張曉剛在那一時期畫作的展覽，他說張曉剛那時主要畫的是身着託加式長袍的人物，四周是異教、基督教及佛教信仰的標誌符號。冷林說，“他在與歐洲較勁。”