【訪談/推薦】慄憲庭：藝術家的可悲，莫過於太執著於做一個藝術家
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近幾年，隨著當代藝術成為一種時尚樣式，「當代」這個詞彙，也空前的泛濫，所有畫種和藝術樣式，都要在自己領地的前面冠以「當代」兩個字，當代油畫，當代中國畫，當代工藝品等等。
In recent years, as contemporary art becomes style of a kind of vogue, "contemporary" this word, also unprecedented flood, all kinds of painting and artistic style, want to be in the front of his domain with "contemporary" two words, contemporary oil painting, contemporary Chinese painting, contemporary handicraft and so on.其實，當代藝術，首先是一種藝術態度和文化立場。真實面對自己當下的生存體驗和感覺，以及自己的生存環境，是當代藝術首要的態度。但生活在每一個當代的人，被各種文化觀念和意識形態，乃至畫種諸如油畫味道之類的「行業標準」所包裹，所以，個人所體驗到的生存感覺的真實性，須有心靈的自由和獨立，才能超越各種外在的文化觀念和意識形態的束縛，還給個人感覺一個鮮活的狀態。
In fact, contemporary art is, above all, an artistic attitude and cultural standpoint. It is the primary attitude of contemporary art to face up to one's current living experience and feelings as well as one's own living environment. But life in each of the contemporary people, is a variety of cultural ideas and ideology, and even the picture such as oil painting taste "industry standard" package, so, the authenticity of individuals living feelings of experience, must have the freedom and independence of mind, to go beyond the constraints of various external cultural concept and ideology, and also the individual feels a living state.其次，我們說他是藝術家，而不強調他是一個畫家，一個雕塑家，一個攝影家，是強調看一件藝術作品，不把畫種「行業標準」作為評判藝術的標準。如一張油畫，他畫得像不像傳統油畫，有沒有傳統油畫味道，不再重要，造型準確與否，也不再重要。
Secondly, when we say that he is an artist, we do not emphasize that he is a painter, a sculptor, a photographer. We emphasize that we should look at a work of art and do not regard the "industrial standard" as the criterion for judging art. Like a painting, he painted like traditional oil painting, there is no traditional oil painting taste, no longer important, modeling accurate or not, no longer important.要看的是，這張作品是不是提供給觀眾一種與當代人生存有關的新感覺。所以一些當代藝術家往往不局限某一種媒質，某一種畫種，或者今天畫油畫，明天可能作行為。當然，因人而異，一個藝術家可能只善於使用一種媒材，但他的作品依然不是傳統畫種意義的攝影或者油畫。
What is to be seen is whether the work provides the viewer with a new sense of relevance to contemporary survival. So some contemporary artists are often not limited to a certain medium, a certain kind of painting, or painting oil today, may act tomorrow. Of course, it varies from person to person. An artist may only be good at using one medium, but his works are still not traditional photography or oil painting.其三，當代藝術在中國的發展已經近三十年了，但它始終在一個小圈子裡發展，近年媒體多有報導，但多是負面報導，尤其網絡上，大有把當代藝術妖魔化的傾向。
Third, the development of contemporary art in China has been nearly three decades, but it has always developed in a small circle. In recent years, there has been much media coverage, but most of it is negative. Especially on the Internet, there is a tendency to demonize contemporary art.其中一個最典型的發問是，這也叫藝術? 其實你在發問時，你自己就有一個有關藝術的基本界定，這種界定來自以往的經驗。我們有過什麼經驗?凡是今天活著的人，如果沒有受過西方二十世紀現代藝術的教育(自我教育也是教育)，他的藝術知識乃至審美經驗，大致來自五四以來的寫實主義藝術觀念，包括中國傳統水墨畫，也經歷了寫實主義的改造。
One of the most typical questions is, is this art? In fact, when you ask a question, you have a basic definition of art, which comes from past experience. What experience have we had? Without the education of the western modern art in the 20th century (self-education is also education), the person alive today, whose artistic knowledge and aesthetic experience are roughly derived from the realistic artistic concepts since the May 4th Movement, including traditional Chinese ink painting, has also experienced the transformation of realism.對於所有沒有現代主義知識背景的人，不管他是平民百姓，還是大學教授，所謂「藝術」的基本框架，來源於寫實主義的知識框架。五四以來寫實主義的主流藝術框架，來源於西方文藝復興到十九世紀的古典藝術模式，由於西方藝術起源於模仿說，以及文藝復興以後所追求的科學焦點透視和解剖學等原因，使寫實主義一開始就有「生活本來樣式」的最表面特徵，所以，「畫的是什麼」，成為藝術的基本認知框架，「栩栩如生」也成為很高的標準。
For all people without a background of modernism, whether they are ordinary people or university professors, the basic framework of the so-called "art" comes from the knowledge framework of realism. Mainstream art framework of realism since the May 4th movement, from the Renaissance to the 19th century western classical art mode, because of the western art mimics said, and pursued after the Renaissance of science focus perspective and anatomy, the realism "life style" to begin with the surface characteristics, therefore, "what's in the picture", become the basic cognitive framework of art, "vivid" has become a very high standard.把「畫的是什麼」「栩栩如生」當作衡量藝術的標準，是一種審美惰性。其實，寫實主義並沒有那麼簡單。你看出那幅作品畫的是一片樹林，不能叫看得懂寫實主義繪畫，用栩栩如生來判斷那幅畫有樹林的畫，也不是對那幅畫的讚美。你得看出那幅「樹林」背後作者的感覺，看得出他畫樹林時所運用的構圖、色彩、筆觸所傳達的個人感覺，而且這種個人感覺與那個時代，與人的人生體驗有哪種關聯等等，才叫看得懂那幅畫。
It is a kind of aesthetic inertia to take "what is painted" and "lifelike" as the standard to measure art. In fact, realism is not so simple. You can see that the painting is a wood, can not be called realistic painting, by the lifelike to judge that painting has a wood, is not a painting of praise. You have to see the feeling behind the "woods", the personal feeling conveyed by the composition, color and brush strokes he used in painting the woods, and how this personal feeling is related to the era and the human experience, etc., in order to understand the painting.從這個角度說，現代藝術和當代藝術所追求的，有其共同之處。而整個二十世紀的西方藝術，就是為了更直接地表達個人感覺，拋棄了寫實主義，作了各種各樣的嘗試，藝術的語言樣式達到極大的拓展，產生了諸如裝置、行為、電子媒體、聲音藝術等五花八門的樣式。
From this point of view, the pursuit of modern art and contemporary art have something in common. In the whole 20th century, western art, in order to express personal feelings more directly, abandoned realism and made a variety of attempts. The linguistic styles of art greatly expanded, giving rise to various styles such as installation, behavior, electronic media and sound art.二十世紀初期，「這是藝術嗎」的追問也曾經發生，但藝術史解決了這個問題，就是藝術的發展始終在提供新的感覺，創造新的媒介這個語境中發生發展的。你看一件作品，須把它放在一個一定的語境中，才能更好的理解它。這個語境是雙重的，一方面是人的生存處境的變遷，在現代化的今天，我們的生存環境――包括吃喝拉撒睡的各個方面發生了激烈的變化，藝術家作為人類最敏感的人群，他們對今天生存環境變遷的體驗，往往能體驗到常人不能體驗到的東西，所以藝術提供新的感覺很自然。另一方面藝術家為表達新的感覺，尋找新的語言模式，或者在已有的模式中作個人化的處理，也是自然的。所以你面對一件作品，你得知道它的前因後果。
It is the development of art in the context of providing new feelings and creating new media. If you look at a work, you must put it in a certain context to better understand it. The context is twofold, on the one hand, the change of people's survival situation, in today's modern, our living environment, including eat and drink pull scatter sleep intense changes have taken place in all aspects of the artist as a human's most sensitive crowd, their experiences of living environment change today, often can experience the average man can't experience, so art provide new feeling is very natural. On the other hand, it is natural for artists to express new feelings, seek for new language patterns, or make personal treatment in existing patterns. So when you look at a piece, you have to know the context.即使你有二十世紀西方現代藝術歷史的知識，你能不能不用經典大師的作品――依然是過去的經驗來――看待今天的藝術，也是一個問題。我喜歡這樣來理解「大浪淘沙」這個詞，人們喜歡看到被大浪淘洗出的金子，我更看重大浪裹挾著沙子和金子的那種瞬間，如果沒有大浪，沒有大浪裹挾著大量的沙子，金子怎樣能產生出來的?
Even if you have a knowledge of the history of western modern art in the 20th century, it is questionable whether you can look at art today without seeing the work of the classical masters, still from the past. People like to see the gold washed by the big wave. I pay more attention to the moment when the big wave brings the sand and the gold. If there is no big wave, how can the gold be produced if the big wave does not bring a lot of sand?事實上還有一種危險，當大浪淘沙過後，金子被留在了歷史中，所有的後人，就被這金子的歷史所教育，形成一種看藝術的經驗，開始以「看金子」一樣的眼光，挑剔今天的藝術，事實上，今天的金子不但被裹挾在沙子裡不容易被看見，金子也不是昨天的金子，所有今天發生的藝術，都不是以往經驗所能把握的。所以，只看「金子」眼光的本身，就是今天所以形成阻礙藝術發展的社會保守力量的原因之一，我以為大浪淘沙的瞬間往往是一個新藝術將要產生的鮮活狀態。
In fact there is a danger, when after the ebb tide, gold is left in the history, all of the future generations, is this gold history education, form a kind of art experience, start with "gold", selective art today, in fact, today's gold not only was enveloped in the sand is not easy to be seen, the gold is not the gold yesterday, all the art of what happened today, is not grasp of the conscious experience. Therefore, looking only at the "gold" vision itself is one of the reasons for the formation of the social conservative force that hinders the development of art today. I think the moment when the waves sweep sand is often a fresh state of art nouveau.