李世默：威权艺术（AUTHORITARIAN ART）

上周揭幕的香港国际艺术展充分展现了中国当代艺术的活力。遥想二、三十年前，业余收藏家还在北京和上海的各个破陋的艺术创作室搜罗，以几百美元一件作品的低价收购那些穷困潦倒的艺术家的作品。如今，全世界的顶尖收藏家云集香港，把香港打造成全球艺术市场的交易高地。香港能有如今的全球艺术中心地位，很大程度上归功于当代中国艺术的成就和中国市场的购买力。单从经济的角度看，中国当代艺术作品的价格节节高升。许多持自由主义政治立场的评论者都不愿意直面这一现实，因为按照他们的理论解释不通。他们一贯的思路是：创作自由是孕育伟大作品的前提条件；中国的威权主义政治极大地限制了创作自由；缺乏自由的中国不可能创造真正伟大的文化成就（也即所谓的“软实力”）。

市场的看法完全与之相左。随着巴塞尔和迈阿密的热度逐渐下降，世界各国的画廊、艺术品交易商、收藏家和艺术家们汇集中国，这20多年来当代中国艺术的飞跃看来会不断延续。

自由主义对艺术的解释并没有事实依据，而是受了意识形态的歪曲。回顾漫长的人类艺术史，所谓的艺术创作自由可以说是个很晚才出现的异常现象。米开朗基罗为教皇画画。中国的文人画家都是朝廷供职的官员。莫扎特在盛气凌人的神圣罗马帝国皇帝帐下创作乐曲。1984年出品的传记电影《莫扎特》生动地展现了两人的关系，皇帝对他吼道：“你写的音符太多了，莫扎特！”

事实上，只要随便浏览一下纽约大都会艺术博物馆和卢浮宫等世界顶尖的文化机构便会发现，绝大部分受人推崇的艺术作品都是在没有艺术自由的条件下创作出来的。无论哪个文明，哪种文化，其多数伟大的艺术品都是在政治、宗教的权威体制或命令下完成的。甚至最严酷的独裁统治也创造出了流芳千古的伟大艺术。金字塔为法老而建，肖斯塔科维奇在斯大林统治下创作出美丽的交响乐。

中国当代艺术界的状况颇为复杂。国家同时为艺术的赞助者和审查者。政府投入大量资金发展艺术活动，比如最近上海美术馆与纽约亚洲协会美术馆合作，在纽约举办吴冠中画展。近些年来政府加大了对艺术院校的投入，许多创作出价值不菲的艺术作品的艺术家都是中国艺术院校的毕业生。

就艺术家个人而言，中国的艺术家，无论是已经成名的还是新生代，都在进行着大胆的艺术实验。国内外的知名画廊与交易商依靠当代中国艺术家的作品搭建起一个庞大的艺术品商业王国。世界各地的策展人来到中国活动，将中国视为艺术创新的热土。不过，他们进行艺术活动的同时，必需遵循着强大的中国政府制定的规则。当然也有艾未未之类的例外，但他们的遭遇表明，规则绝不是儿戏。

只有历史才能检验这个时代是否在创造真正伟大的艺术作品。但没人能否认，这个世界上最大的威权主义国家正培育着健全的艺术环境，以及极为活跃的创造力。

香港国际艺术展人潮涌动、熙熙攘攘，那些还在布道“艺术自由”的人觉得似乎有些不对劲。中国繁荣的艺术市场在他们信奉的意识形态里讲不通。但中国其实并非特例。无论何种政治体制，人类文明都可以诞生令人赞叹的艺术作品。有些人受了意识形态的干扰，以为只有一种政治体制能够发展文化。反讽的是，恰恰是持这一看法的人把艺术政治化了。

难道他们想说达明安•赫斯特（Damien Hirst）比米开朗基罗的艺术水准更高超，Lady Gaga的音乐比莫扎特更优秀，地铁站的涂鸦比埃及金字塔更辉煌？中国的当代艺术正在击破他们的谬论。

李世默（Eric X. Li）是上海的风险投资家

朱新伟 / 译

本文同时刊发于香港《南华早报》、美国《赫芬顿邮报》，英文版请见下页。转载须注明观察者网。

AUTHORITARIAN ART 

By: Eric X. Li

HONG KONG – The vibrancy of contemporary China’s art world is on full display at this week’s Hong Kong International Art Fair. Barely a generation ago, amateur collectors braving the shabby studios of starving artists in Beijing and Shanghai were buying art for a few hundred dollars apiece.

Today, the world converges in a Hong Kong well on its way to becoming a leading hub of the global art market, driven in large part by the art being created in China and the buying power of the country’s rising wealth.

Prices of contemporary Chinese art continue to reach commanding heights. It is a phenomenon many liberal political commentators rather ignore. It does not fit their narrative. The story they prefer to tell goes as follows: Artistic freedom is the prerequisite of creating great art; China’s authoritarian politics places severe limits on artistic freedom; such lack of freedom makes it impossible for China to attain real cultural achievements - the much craved “soft power”.

Well, the market says otherwise. As things slow down in Basel and Miami, leading galleries, dealers, collectors, and artists who congregate here are setting the art world of the People’s Republic abuzz. It seems to be only an interim culmination of a 20-year trend that shows no sign of slowing.

It turns out that the liberal narrative is based not on facts but on ideology. In the long history of man’s endeavor to create art, the so-called artistic freedom is a very recent anomaly. Michelangelo worked for the Pope. The Chinese literati painters were Mandarins serving the imperial court. Mozart composed at the pleasure of a rather overbearing Holy Roman Emperor, as brilliantly depicted in the 1984 film Amadeus – “Too many notes, Mozart!”

In fact, if one takes a stroll in the corridors of the world’s premier cultural institutions such as the New York Metropolitan Museum and the Louvre, the vast majority of art works being admired were created with no artistic freedom at all. In every culture and every civilization, most great art was produced under, or at the service of, political and/or religious authorities. Enduring artistic achievements were realized even under the harshest forms of dictatorial rule. The pyramids were built for the Pharaohs and Shostakovich composed, with real discomfort, beautiful music under Stalin.

The contemporary art scene in China is a mixed one. The state is both a patron and a censor of art. Large investments have been made by the government to promote artistic activities. The recent partnership between the government-run Shanghai Art Museum and New York’s Asia Society for the exhibit of the late Wu Guanzhong’s work is a case in point. Many of the artists whose million-dollar works are on exhibit at the art fair are graduates from art institutes that have been receiving dramatically increased government funding in recent years.

In the private sector, Chinese artists, successful and aspiring ones alike, are conducting wide-ranging and far-reaching artistic experiments. Galleries and dealers, both local and leading international names, are building a vast commercial empire on their works. Curators around the world work in China and find it to be a most fertile soil for ground breaking artistic interpretations. Yet, they all work within the restrictions set by a strong political authority. Exceptions exist, like Ai Weiwei, but they prove the rule.

Only history will tell whether truly great art of enduring value is being created here and now. But no one can deny that creativity of a most vibrant kind is driving a robust art ecosystem within the world’s most significant authoritarian state.

Amid the hustle and bustle of the Hong Kong International Art Fair, those who have been preaching “artistic freedom” seem rather out of place. For them, it is not supposed to be like this. For any objective observer, it is not unique at all. Human civilization has been blessed with marvelous artistic creation under all different kinds of political systems. Those who claim that only one form of political governance is conducive to the development of culture are under the spell of ideological self-delusion. It is an irony that they are the ones who seem to be politicizing art just as much as, if not more than, the authoritarian state they detest.

Are they really prepared to pronounce Damian Hurst inherently superior to Michelangelo, Lady Gaga more enduring than Mozart, and subway graffiti greater cultural monuments than the pyramids? The thundering footsteps of Chinese art are leaving them far behind.

Eric X. Li is a venture capitalist in Shanghai.