挪威明珠:奧斯陸 下一個藝術之都(2)

Apart from its showier signifiers of wealth, a wholesome enthusiasm suffuses the Oslo art scene, perhaps because of its geographic isolation, extreme climate and high cost of living. At the April reopening party of Kunstnernes Hus (Artists' House)-a club across the street from the Royal Palace-more than 100 people waited in line outside the door. Inside, Karl Holmqvist-one of the most famous artists in Sweden-performed onstage. 'Who runs the world? Girrrrls,' he bleated into the microphone. Half the room watched while the other half talked giddily over beers from Dronebrygg, an Oslo-based artist-run microbrewery.

除了巨大的資金支持，奧斯陸的藝術圈瀰漫着積極向上的熱情，這一景象的產生原因可能在於奧斯陸偏遠的地理位置、極端的氣候以及高昂的生活開銷。今年四月，皇家宮殿(Royal Palace)對面的藝術家中心(Kunsternes Hus)舉辦重新開放聚會時，有一百多人在門外等場。室內，瑞典最紅的藝人之一Karl Holmqvist重新演繹了碧昂斯的《女孩最大》(Run the World(Girls))。一半觀眾欣賞了表演，另一半則嘻嘻哈哈地聊着天，喝着由藝術家經營的本地小啤酒廠Dronebrygg生產的啤酒。

STATOIL KEEPS REGIONAL headquarters in Fornebu, an office park rising on the outskirts of town that recalls the corporate anomie of Paris's La Défense. In 2007, Statoil merged with the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro and, in the merger, took over some of that company's art collection. Bjarne Vaaga, an art historian and consultant with the Statoil Art Program, focuses on acquiring works from emerging Norwegian and international artists for the company. 'I think it was very good advice from Edvard Munch: He said, 'Only buy art from living artists,' ' says Vaaga. Indeed, the company seizes every opportunity to showcase its collection: hanging work in its offshore rigs and throughout its office buildings from Houston to Stavanger. A 12,900-square-foot video installation by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist plays on the underside of the Fornebu office's main entryway. Nearby sits a spherical sculpture by Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Elíasson. Once construction is complete, Ekblad and Standard (Oslo) artist Gardar Eide Einarsson will also have works on display around the Fornebu campus.

挪威國家石油公司(STATOIL)的區域總部在Fornebu。公司的大樓在市郊拔地而起，很有法國巴黎拉德芳斯站(La Defense)的感覺。2007年，挪威國家石油公司兼併了挪威海德魯公司(Norsk Hydro)的石油及天然氣部，並在兼併的過程中接管了一部分該公司的藝術藏品。挪威國家石油公司藝術項目的藝術史學家兼顧問Bjarne Vaaga讓公司把目光投向挪威新興藝術家以及國際藝術家。Vaaga説：“我覺得愛德華・蒙克(Edvard Munch)説的很好，‘只從活着的藝術家手中購買藝術品。’”確實，這個公司不放過任何展示自己藝術收藏的機會：不論是離岸 井上，還是其在休斯頓亦或是斯塔萬格(Stavanger)的辦公室大樓，都掛有藝術品。Forbune辦公室的主要通道的地面有一個由瑞士藝術家皮皮魯提・瑞斯特(Pipilotti Rist)設計的足有12,900平方英尺（約1,198平方米）的視頻裝置。其附近則有一座由一名丹麥裔冰島藝術家設計的球狀雕塑。一旦公司建築完工，艾克巴萊德和Standard (Oslo)的藝術家加達・埃德・埃納爾鬆(Gardar Eide Einarsson)的作品就會入駐其間。

The corporate interests at play and the bureaucracy surrounding the subsidies call into question the realness of the Norwegian art market: Is it really just a bubble of vainglorious ambition? The cynical view, which people voice out of the corner of their mouths, is that artists' stipends are cheaper for the government than unemployment benefits. But many disagree. Over green tea and carrot soup, Marta Kuzma, the American director of Norway's Office for Contemporary Art (OCA), explains how public financing has breathed genuine creative life into the city. 'I think when people are feeling positive in a community and a community is building, it's very creatively free,' she says. 'A community creates a vibe and an impetus to be with one another.'

企業的收購以及官方的補貼讓人們不禁質疑挪威藝術市場的真實程度：這種野心是否太虛榮？人們冷嘲熱諷，説政府覺得給藝術家補貼比發放失業補助金更便宜。但也有許多人並不同意。挪威當代藝術局(Office for Contemporary Art, 簡稱OCA)的美國主任瑪塔・庫茲瑪(Marta Kuzma)就着綠茶和胡蘿蔔湯，解釋了公共財政支持如何將藝術創意之風吹入了城市生活中，“我覺得只要人們覺得在一個團體裏感覺良好，這個團體又在成長，創作就會更自由。而一個團體也會培養出自己的氣場和動力，跟其它團體共同成長。”

Before joining OCA eight years ago, Kuzma held a long line of top-tier curatorial posts stretching from Washington, D.C. to Kiev, including curator and agent for the last Documenta art fair in Kassel, Germany. At OCA, her job is to cultivate a unique, internationally heard voice for Norway. The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs pooled money to start OCA in 2001, as what Kuzma calls an 'object of curiosity.' One of the organization's aims is to give artists and curators from around the world an incentive to stay longer than 24 hours in Oslo-to make the capital more than just a quaint stopover on the international circuit. In that regard, Norway has catching up to do with the likes of Switzerland, Germany and Austria, Kuzma says. But when austerity means the slashing of cultural funding across Europe, Norway is well positioned to join those countries better known historically for promoting the arts.

八年前庫茲瑪還未加入OCA的時候，她在不同地方擔任過頂級藝術管理職位：從華盛頓特區到基輔(Kiev)，包括去年的卡塞爾文獻展(Documenta Art Fair in Kassel)，都留下了她的足跡。在OCA，她的職責是培養挪威的獨特性，並將其推廣到全世界。挪威文化部與外交部(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)籌集了資金，於2001年成立了OCA，它被庫茲瑪戲稱為“好奇心的產物”。這一組織的目標之一便是給來自全世界的藝術家和館長一個留在奧斯陸的理由，讓這座首都不僅僅是國際航線的中轉站。庫茲瑪説，在這一點上，挪威已迎頭趕上了瑞士、德國以及奧地利。但是，當經濟下滑導致整個歐洲藝術基金嚴重縮水時，挪威已充分準備好與那些在藝術上有很高造詣的國家結為聯盟。

For his part, Furnesvik has found it easiest to promote Norwegian artists as a gallerist and businessman working in the private sector. Not unlike the shipping companies that enjoy easy access to the North Sea, Norway is a base of operations for Furnesvik, not a market. He says 75 percent of the work sold at Standard (Oslo) leaves the country. 'The local market has never been the reason the gallery started,' he says. With few exceptions, Standard (Oslo) has launched the careers of the most internationally sought-after living Norwegian artists-Fredrik Vaerslev, Matias Faldbakken and Einarsson-and boosted the international profile of the American artists it represents, like Tauba Auerbach, Alex Hubbard and Josh Smith. According to Furnesvik, for certain artists, like Faldbakken, there's more global demand for the work than the gallery could possibly supply. Last spring, days before Furnesvik's 40th birthday, Standard (Oslo) expanded into a 8,400-square-foot white-cube space.

Furnesvik發現推廣挪威藝術家最簡單的方法就是把他們打造成藝廊經營者以及私有領域的商人。挪威與那些可以用便捷方式到達北海的航運公司並無不同，對Furnesvik來説，挪威更像是操作基地，而非市場。他説，Standard (Oslo)售出作品的75%都已經被帶出挪威，“當地市場從來就不是藝廊開張的原因。”但是也有例外。Standard (Oslo)成功地幫助了一些挪威最當紅的國際藝術家開啟事業大門，如Fredrik Vaerslev，Matias Faldbakken以及埃納爾鬆，也提升了其代表的美國藝術家的國際形象，如託巴・奧爾巴赫(Tauba Auerbach)，亞歷克斯・哈伯德(Alex Hubbard)以及喬希・史密斯(Josh Smith)。據Furnesvik所説，對一些類似Faldbakken的藝術家來説，他們作品的國際需求，藝廊還遠不能滿足。去年春天，就在Furnesvik 40歲生日的幾天前，Standard (Oslo)擴展出了了一個有8,400平方英尺（約780平方米）的白色立方型空間。

While artists, gallerists and even the government have begun to voice their artistic ambitions internationally, a serious class of Norwegian art collector has yet to emerge. It's one reason why a gallery of Standard (Oslo)'s caliber has to conduct so much business abroad. Given the country's middle-class ethos of equality, collecting contemporary art isn't an obvious exercise for the young moneyed class. (The oft-quoted Law of Jante, an informal Scandinavian social code coined by the author Aksel Sandemose in 1933, discourages citizens from rising above his or her social station.) 'If you go to New York, the financial industry is the biggest thing,' says Furnesvik. 'Within that, if you are to be considered an educated person, you have to aspire to collect art. It's somehow expected of you, on the same level as wearing a tie. There is none of that in Norway. It's a culture of equality.'

雖然藝術家、藝廊經營者乃至政府都已經向世界宣告了他們的藝術野心，但是挪威並沒有出現真正的藝術收藏階層。這是Standard (Oslo)的藝術品大量外銷的原因之一。挪威的中產階級尊崇平等的理念，所以新貴一族收藏當代藝術作品就顯得有些不合時宜（廣為流傳的詹代法則(Law of Jante)雖不算正式，但也認為公民不應該有超出其社會層次的行為。這一斯堪的納維亞社會法則由阿克塞爾・桑德莫斯(Aksel Sandemose)於1933年提出）。Furnesvik説，“如果你去紐約，最強的是金融行業。同樣的道理，如果你想讓別人覺得你受過良好教育，你必須得收藏藝術品。這是社會對你的期待，就像出席正式場合要戴領帶一樣。在挪威沒有這些要求，這裏的文化就是平等。”

Perhaps it's no surprise that Petter Snare, a rare Norwegian collector, worked in the art world for a time with Furnesvik. Snare acquired his first works in the '90s as a law student in Bergen and later helped launch Standard (Oslo) in 2005 before selling his share two years later and returning to his legal career. In his free time, he runs an art book publisher, Teknisk Industri. Each book he publishes is almost completely financed by the government, according to Snare. He also sits on the board of many public and private art institutions across the country, including the Bergen Kunsthall and the Bildende Kunstneres Hjelpefond, an artists' relief fund dating back to the '40s supported by a 5-percent fee levied on all visual artwork publicly sold in the country.

也許彼得・斯奈爾(Petter Snare)這一挪威少有的收藏家曾同Furnesvik一同合作過一段時間並不奇怪。斯奈爾在上世紀90年代得到了他第一件藏品。彼時他還是卑爾根的一名法律學生。2005年，他幫助成立了Standard (Oslo)，兩年後，他賣出了自己的股份，重回法律行業。在閒暇時間，他經營一家名叫TekniskIndustri的藝術書籍出版社。他説，他出版的每本書幾乎都是政府出資。他同時也是挪威各地公共或私人藝術機構的董事會成員，這些機構包括Bergen Kunsthall以及Bildende Kunstneres Hjelpefond；後者是一項成立於40年代的藝術家救助基金，國內所有公開銷售的視覺藝術作品的百分之五收入會用於該基金。

'Contemporary art as a social marker, at least in Norway, is something new,' Snare says over a glass of beer in the chandeliered lobby of downtown's Hotel Bristol. 'Norwegians are mainly trying to be less flashy. It might be an urban myth, but there are all these stories about shipping people in Norway having huge amounts of money and driving themselves to the airport in a Nissan and being picked up by a Rolls-Royce at London Heathrow.'

斯奈爾在市中心裝有華麗吊燈的布里斯托酒店(Hotel Bristol)大廳，一邊喝着啤酒一邊説道：“把當代藝術當作社會標誌，至少在挪威，是一件很新鮮的事。挪威人一般不願意張揚。可能這是個都市傳奇，但是有些故事講的就是挪威一些搞航運的人積累了大量的財富，開着尼桑轎車(Nissan)去機場，然後在倫敦西斯羅機場(Heathrow)被接機的人護送上勞斯萊斯(Rolls-Royce)。”

If the narrative about somewhat provincial Norwegians going out into the world has, in the last two decades, found its way out of an awkward adolescence, the reverse migration is just beginning. The American gallerist Esperanza Rosales moved to Oslo from Brussels in the fall of 2011 to do something unheard of: launch a commercial gallery as an outsider. She first visited Oslo to attend an event hosted by OCA. During her stay, she met Stian Eide Kluge and Steffen Håndlykken, two Norwegian artists launching a gallery of their own called 1857 in Grønland, an immigrant neighborhood near the train station. The space they chose was a battered log cabin, the erstwhile operating headquarters for the Bandidos Motorcycle Club. The cabin was full of trash, and snow fell through the crumbling roof. 'Something about that kind of spirit,' say Rosales, 'this particular initiative they have to take something that was falling apart and fix it up, really stuck in my mind.'

如果這個講述淳 的挪威人走進大千世界的故事在過去二十年就已經成為了現實的話，那麼新移民進入挪威則是新的潮流。埃斯佩蘭薩・羅薩萊斯(Esperanza Rosales)在2011年秋天從布魯塞爾移居奧斯陸，並且做了一件聞所未聞的事：以外行人的身份開了一家商業藝廊。她與奧斯陸的初次邂逅是來參加OCA舉辦的活動。在她停留期間，她見到了兩個開辦自己藝廊的挪威藝術家。這家藝廊名叫1857，位於靠近火車站的移民聚集地。他們選用的空間是一個破舊的木屋，雪花會從搖搖欲墜的屋頂上 下來。羅薩萊斯説：“他們身上的那種精神，那種要把瀕臨潰敗的事物拯救回來的動力，很叫我難忘。”

'Norway, there are things I love about it, but it's very severe,' she says. She's ready with examples of the baffling cost of running a business within the country's economy. 'I once went to the post office to buy an envelope and a five-pack costs 65 U.S. dollars. They have local postage on them already, but still that's a lot.'

她説：“挪威有我愛的地方，但是現在日子也不好過。”挪威經濟已受創，做生意成本很高，她給了些例子：“一次我去郵局買信封，一套五個裝的信封居然要花65美元（約400人民幣）。信封上已貼有當地郵票，可是價格仍然太貴了。”

In Oslo there's an incredible will to make things happen despite the odds-a community survival instinct, part of the bully attitude it takes to survive so far north. After two months, Rosales was able to negotiate free rent on a warren of lower level rooms below the Grønland Menighetshus, a former congregational hall built in 1913. Her program so far has included work by Ekblad and another Norwegian artist Lars Laumann, as well as by young artists from more established art capitals like Berlin and London. 'I realized there was room for another commercial gallery, or perhaps one that could have a very different profile than Standard,' she says. 'A commercial gallery with the spirit of a project space.' According to her agreement, she'll begin paying rent there when the gallery starts turning a profit. In the meantime she's investigating the possibility of claiming more space in a nearby prison.

奧斯陸有種排除萬難堅持到最後的精神――這既是一個族羣的本能，一定程度上也是在如此靠北的地方生存下來必備的態度。兩個月後，羅薩萊斯在一個稍低檔些的房子談判自己的免費房租。這個房屋原來是會議大廳，首建於1913年。她的項目目前包括了艾克布萊德和另一位挪威藝術家拉爾斯・勞曼(Lars Laumann)的作品，以及來自比較成熟的藝術之都如柏林和倫敦的藝術家作品。她説：“我意識到還有空間經營另一個商業藝廊。或許是一個跟Standard大相徑庭，並且將商業藝廊和項目空間的精神結合起來的藝廊。”根據協議，當藝廊開始盈利的時候，她就要開始交房租了。同時，她也正在調查是否旁邊的監獄能夠提供更多空間。

Rosales's gallery, called VI, VII, takes its name from the British colloquialism 'at sixes and sevens.' 'It means that someone is at a point of confusion, maybe making a bad choice or they're showing recklessness,' she says. 'The history of this is a little unclear, but some people think it came out of dice-throwing games-when somebody would bet everything they had on the next throw of the dice, and sometimes lose. I liked that it could be read as total stupidity or total courage.'

羅薩萊斯的藝廊叫作VI, VII。這兩個名字來源於俗語“六神無主”和“七上八下”（譯者注：原文為sixes and sevens，意為亂七八糟）。她説：“這些短語表達的是人處在混沌的狀態，這樣人可能會做一些不好的決定，或者做出輕率魯莽的事。這些短語的詞源我不是很清楚，但是一些人覺得可能起源於丟骰子的遊戲。有人下了所有的籌碼，寄希望於下一次投骰子，但是卻輸了。我喜歡它們是因為它們代表的就是徹底的愚蠢，或者徹底的勇氣。”