M+的总策展人组建他的新团队，克服公众的质疑来策划乌利-希克的百宝箱。             郑道炼是原纽约当代美术馆油画和雕塑联合策展人，此次访谈主要关注他作为M+总策展人的新角色，他的策展方式以及他对于M+作为位于香港的21世纪国际化博物馆这一模式的设想。 M+’s chief curator on building his new team, overcoming public suspicion and curating UliSigg’s treasure chest. Doryun Chong, formerly the associate curator of painting and sculpture at MoMA, speaks to Art Radar about his new role as chief curator of M+ Museum, his curatorial approach and his vision for M+ as a 21st century model for an international museum situated in Hong Kong.

                         Design of M+ museum’s main entrance by Herzog & de Meuron. Image courtesy M+ museum.

M+博物馆是西九龙文化区管理局在视觉文化拓展项目中的一个重要组成部分，将在2018年初开幕。该项目建造于可俯瞰维多利亚港的57英亩填海区，博物馆将专注于20世纪和21世纪的艺术，设计，建筑及移动影像。洛杉矶时报这样报道：“策划者希望这个耗资6.42亿美元的美术馆成为世界顶级的现代与当代艺术据点之一，其地位如同法国巴黎的蓬皮杜艺术中心和纽约的现代艺术博物馆。”博物馆的设计正在由赫尔佐格-德梅隆建筑事务所负责进行，这个建筑事务所的成名之作是伦敦泰特现代美术馆。       领导这个国际级管理及策展人团队的是Lars Nittve，他是M+博物馆的执行董事，曾任泰特现代美术馆的创始董事。8月他邀请郑道炼加入团队，成为M+博物馆新的总策展人。郑道炼出生于韩国，拥有加州大学伯克利分校艺术史的学士及博士学位，并且在美国各大主要博物馆工作过，其中包括旧金山亚洲艺术博物馆和纽约现代艺术博物馆。       本次访谈中，郑道炼向我们讲述了他作为总策展人的新身份，工作上的面对的挑战，以及他对坐落于香港的全球化博物馆的展望。 M+ Museum, a key part of an expansive visual culture project by the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA), is slated to open early in 2018. Built on 57 acres of reclaimed land overlooking the Victoria Harbour, the museum will focus on twentieth and twenty-first century art, design, architecture and the moving image. According to the Los Angeles Times, “planners hope the USD642 million museum will become one of the world’s top modern and contemporary art destinations on the level of Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.” The design for the museum is well under way with Herzog & de Meuron, the architectural firm known for Tate Modern of London. Heading the international team of executives and curators is Lars Nittve, the executive director of M+, who formerly served as the founding director of the Tate Modern. In August he was joined by Doryun Chong, M+’s new Chief Curator. Chong, who was born in South Korea, holds a BA and PhD in art history from the University of California, Berkeley and worked in major museums in the United States, including San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum and New York’s MoMA. Art Radar caught up with Chong to talk about his role as Chief Curator, the challenges of the job and his vision for a global museum located in Hong Kong.

                         Doryun Chong, chief curator of M+ museum. Image courtesy M+ museum.

你认为你为什么会成为M+博物馆总策展人的最佳人选？       我为什么是这项工作的最佳人选？我是这项工作的最佳人选吗？我猜如果我简单地回答“是”，那就会显得我有一些傲慢。我认为任何一种委任都是基于得到这个工作的人的自信和选择了你的那个人的信任的结合。这里存在一个结合点。很明显，选举委员会的人对我有特定的期待，对我而言，这是自信与信念的结合，是对我对于这个工作，这个项目，这个机构具有价值的信念，当然它也能让我对这项工作的前景感到兴奋。所以，这个结合点是存在于我、M+博物馆以及西九龙文化区管理局之间的，这是一种伞式组织：我们可以在中间的某处相遇，并且达成一致，使我们同时相信：我就是那个合适的人。       作为总策展人，你的角色意味着什么？       总策展人是策展部门的负责人，它存在于一个不断增长和变化的过程中。包括我在内，我们现在有13个人，从策展助理，到全职策展人，再到高级策展人。这看起来像是一种不断成长的模式。你知道的，我们的队伍在不间断的成长，寻找更多的人加入，并且我们将成长为一个非常大的博物馆。体量方面，它很可能超过纽约现代艺术博物馆，并且拥有更大的展览空间。与此同时，它的收藏品将和纽约现代艺术博物馆在过去的80多年拥有的收藏品一样多。我们非常积极地建立起这个庞大的收藏库，并且仍在继续。因此，我们为了可以应对所有藏品征集活动，各种丰富的展览，以及我们正在策划的公共和教育项目，我们确实需要一个庞大的才华横溢的团队。我的一个重要责任就是使这个团队成长起来，并且完善它的结构，确保策展人们在各自的岗位上高效的工作。       在聚集起这个策展团队的时候，你有没有特别的目标要达成？你希望短期和长期达成何种目标？       短期内，我正在努力达成的目标是确保有最优秀、最具天赋、最有资格的人加入我们的队伍。这对我构建某种文化非常重要，当然，这种文化已经存在了，但是随着团队规模不断扩大，确保其持续性相当重要。       随着藏品不断增加，确保一定的连贯性对我来说非常重要。当然质量的把控相当重要：我们想拥有高品质的藏品，但是我们也要确保这些不同的对象所构成的集合叙述某种连贯性的故事。这一点非常重要。这同样也适用于做节目，怎样做到节目的连贯性和多样性？ What do you think makes you the best curator for the job of chief curator at M+? What do I think makes me the best curator for the job? You know, am I the best curator for the job? I guess if I simply say yes, that would be a little arrogant. I think in any kind of appointment it’s a combination between the confidence of the person who gets the job and also the conviction on the part of the people who tap you. There has to be a kind of a meeting point. Clearly, there were certain kinds of expectations on the part of the selecting committee of people and on my part, it was a combination of self-confidence as well as my belief in my usefulness for what’s needed for this job, this project, for this institution and of course the excitement that comes with the prospect of this job. So I think this sort of meeting point happened between me, M+ museum and the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, which is the umbrella organisation, so we met somewhere in the middle and came to a kind of agreement that I’m the right fit. As the chief curator of M+ museum, what does your role entail? The chief curator is the head of the curatorial department, which is in the process of growing and evolving. We currently have, I believe, thirteen people including me, from curatorial assistants all the way up to full curators and senior curators. It’s kind of like adolescents going through growth spurts. You know, we are constantly growing, seeking more people, and you have to understand that it’s going to be a very large museum. In terms of the physical structure, it’s probably going to exceed the size of MoMA, with very large exhibition spaces. And the collection is going to be as big as MoMA’s, which has been around for the last eighty years. We are very actively building up the collection and will continue to collect. So in order for us to handle all of our collecting activities, as well as the very active exhibitions, public programmes and education programmes that we are planning, we really need to have a very large team of talented people. One big responsibility for me is to grow this department and structure it to ensure that the curators can do their job and that it’s done in the most effective and efficient way. Are there specific goals you have in mind while getting this curatorial team and department together? And what do you hope to accomplish short term as well as long term? Well, short term, I guess the ongoing goal is to really make sure we have the best people, the most talented and most qualified people to join our team. It’s really important for me to establish this kind of a culture, which is already in existence, but as the size of the team grows it’s very important to ensure that this continues. As the collection grows, it’s important for me to make sure that it has a certain coherence. Of course quality control is very important: we want to have top notch quality for our collection but also to make sure what all these disparate objects that are going to constitute the collection tell some kind of a coherent story. That’s very important. And the same can be said about programmes too, how do you accomplish diversity as well as coherence?

                         Design of M+ museum by Herzog & de Meuron. Image courtesy M+ museum.

你对于首次开放有特别计划吗？       我想现在聊这个有点早。那么让我告诉你我们现在处于什么进度吧。首先，我接手这项工作已经三个星期；每一天都像是像速成班或新兵训练营，但它确实令人振奋。我现在的这个阶段就像是一个海绵，仅仅在吸收所有的信息。但是我不能仅仅坐在办公室里吸取信息，因为还要立刻做出决定。我的意思是现在时一个非常活跃的阶段，所有事情每天都在发生变化。       但是，在更大的组织性的层面，我们正处于建筑的设计过程中，你可能已经知道，我们委任瑞士巴塞尔的赫尔佐格-德梅隆建筑事务所进行建筑设计。他们的概念设计被我们选中，作为委托人，现在我们正处于策划和不间断的激烈讨论中，这其中包括讨论我们的需求和期望。所以概念设计正在转化为可行的项目。在进行这些工作的同时，我们也正在建造一座建筑、构建一个藏品库。很明显，这两个事情彼此间存在一种联系。我们还没有一个完全成型的藏品库，它正处于最初期。所以，我们还不能说基于据这个藏品库展览将会是这样。我们还没有到达那么丰富的阶段。我们处于一个不同于这种形式的丰富阶段，我们是在同时做着两件事情。       老实讲，现在存在有多重猜想。但是，我认为对于如此一个大型的项目都会如此，并且我相信我们对于这些预测非常务实；这些猜想可能经过许多次的尝试和失败。我们会尝试这些猜想，并且我们会非常有野心和大胆的去尝试，即便有的人会不喜欢它。但是你知道的，建立并且经营一个机构意味着与公众进行交流。所以我们听取公众的反馈，之后整合，但是有时我们也有自己的坚持，这可能不会让公众马上看到它的效应。因此，这是一个长期的过程：这个长期的过程意味着要经过下一年，也意味着经过2017年和2018年。建筑可能会在2017年完成，所以我们可能在2018年初开幕。到那时我们也会尽可能去设想之后的三年，五年，十年。所以所有的事情是在同一时间发生的。       可以介绍一下策展团队吗？       策展部门并不是以子部门的方式运作。我们的策展人分别致力于当代艺术、水墨艺术、设计和建筑。同时我们正在寻找一位移动影像策展人。所以，所有这些人在不同领域和学科都有着专业知识，但是我们以团队形式一起工作，而不是分部门运作。教育是另外一个领域，它不像其他博物馆一样是分离的，教育部门的工作人员也叫做策展人，他们和我们经常坐在同一张桌子前以一个整体的方式进行讨论。       你打算策划哪些主题？       你知道，我有一个很长的清单，上面是我打算去考虑的想法，但是同时我并没有一个确切的短的清单。我想M+博物馆能做的就是成为一个机构，这个机构告诉我们在现代和当代艺术、设计和建筑，以及移动影像方面不同的发展优势。当然，这不是说这个话题没有任何人涉足过，大部分学者，作家和策展人，以及在亚洲的机构都研究过，只是我认为没有人以这种规模和综合的方式做过。       我所说的太抽象和制度化，所以我来举一些例子，但是记住，我不想成为决定所有项目和藏品的总策展人。所以，这些只是我们可以做的一些选择，我只给你一个小的预览。例如，香港一个众所周知的特点是它独特的致密形式的城市，这里的建筑形式非常特别。我很好奇怎样以一个展览来强调它。这种非常特别的建筑形式，非常密集的城市形式，它不只是建筑，也是道路，也是空间的组织方式，这是怎么发生的？这里将会有一系列关于这个主题的展览，它强调了香港作为一个城市模型的奇特性。你看不到任何其他的例子。世界上有很多其他密度的城市，但没有其他地方像香港这样，不仅像香港，还像它这样有效率。那么，这是怎么实现的？关于这点可以制作一系列的活动。我们的收集活动已经在关注这个主题了。       当你想起香港电影就会想到另外一个领域。当然，王家卫是一位大师。他所形成的独特的视觉语言可以为香港这个特殊的城市空间组织形式做很多。我认为在如何组织发展空间和王家卫的奇异的电影视角如何出现之间有着密切的关系。我想，这只可能在香港出现。       不要使它听起来像这个博物馆只涵盖了香港，我们的收集非常广泛。我很好奇的把不同的活动涵盖进来，形成一个整体，它们包括香港和中国大陆周边的国家。例如，现在我们来聊一下中国当代艺术。当你想到中国当代艺术发展的第一阶段，或者第二阶段，我猜那是在80年代的背景，它发生在艺术市场之前，在任何形式的机构之前，那时候所有的艺术家们的活动都发生在东村。这些艺术家的很多作品都是以表现为基础的----你可以想到像张桓，马六明这样的人----在某种意义上【这些作品】出于一种非常本土的语境，但是我很好奇的是它是怎样与60年代东京非常重要的表现趋势相联系的。我在纽约现代艺术博物馆做的“东京1955”的表演，很多展览致力于以趋势为基础的表现活动。因此，相隔二十年，两个不同的国家，不同的社会政治经济环境。中国艺术家可能不知道二三十年前日本的艺术家做过什么，但是我认为可以在更大的艺术历史的背景下联系起两者，这个艺术史不只是国家艺术史、区域艺术史，我们应联系到更加广阔的外部世界。这些活跃在60年代的日本艺术家与当时的纽约艺术家之间的交流活动非常频繁，我想在之后的时间里，中国艺术家也在纽约找到了自己。相同的情况分别发生在中国和欧洲，欧洲的不同国家，巴黎就像是东京，并且拥有和东京相似的艺术景象。所以我们可以开始描绘一些事件，创造一种信息图或传达思想的网络图，从而分享发生在不同国家的艺术形势。       这个项目可以被做成一个梦幻般的展览，但是也可以做成一个数字化的项目；它可以做成出版物或作为藏品用于展示。这些是我乐于做的事情。 未来的创新博物馆       古根海姆博物馆也在尝试建立起亚洲、欧洲及纽约间的联系。你觉得通过M+建立联系这件事是曾经没有被做过的吗？       不，我不认为这件事未曾被做过。它当然是艺术史发展进程中的一部分，并且已经持续一段时间了。Gutai的展览是一个很好的例子，并且几乎在同一时间，我在纽约现代艺术博物馆做的东京展览也在做着相同的事情。虽然他们使用不同的方法，但是我们探讨的是艺术或艺术运动，这并不局限于一个地点，一个国家，或一群人。这种方法是非常熟悉的，如果愿意，我认为这是每个创新博物馆应该去实践的事。       也许M+博物馆的不同之处在于，首先，它是以中国香港为背景的，你会有一个不同的视角。在这你可以更深刻的了解当地的状况。同时我们也可以了解到中国正在发生着什么，日本，韩国，以及东南亚，印度尼西亚，新加坡，泰国和菲律宾在发生着什么。我们充分利用地域的邻近性，来为亚洲艺术机构做更多。我认为，已经普遍存在的博物馆并没有对亚洲投入很多的关注，像纽约现代艺术博物馆或古根海姆，泰特现代美术馆或蓬皮杜艺术中心，他们并不怎么关心亚洲的艺术活动。他们的藏品和活动更多地关注北美和欧洲，或者可以说是纽约和欧洲某些特定的区域。如果你去关注一下泰特现代美术馆和蓬皮杜艺术中心，会发现他们关注的焦点是他们的所在地，伦敦和巴黎。然后从这个所在地向外发散到世界各地，你不能面面俱到，但是你可以从你的核心发散到外面更广阔的世界，并且涵盖不同方面。我们就是以核心为基础的。我们在做着相同的事情，所以我们并不是在做一件全新的事情，但是它又是新的事情，因为还没有人在这个区域做过。 Do you have specific events planned for the inaugural opening? Oh I think it’s a little early right now. So let me tell you a little bit about where we are. First of all, I’ve been at this job for a little under three weeks; every day is like a crash course or a boot camp, but it’s really exhilarating. I am in the stage of being a sponge, just absorbing all the information. But it’s not like I can sit here and just absorb information because decisions have to be made right away. I mean it’s at a very dynamic stage where things are literally evolving on a day-to-day basis. But on the larger institutional side, we are in the process of designing the building, you probably already know about us having chosen the architect, Herzog & de Meuron based in Basel, Switzerland. They were chosen on the concept design, and now there’s this intense phase of us as the client workshopping and constantly discussing with the architects what our needs are, and what our expectations are. So the concept design is now being transformed into something that’s truly workable. We’re doing all these things at the same time, we’re building a building, and we’re building a collection. These two things obviously have a relationship to each other. We do not have a fully formed collection yet, the collection is at a foetal stage, so it’s not like we can say that based on this collection the gallery should be like this. We don’t have that luxury. We have a different kind of luxury, doing the two things at the same time. To be honest, there’s a lot of guesswork that’s happening. But I think that comes with any kind of mega project like this, and I think we are very realistic about these projections; this is guesswork, there will be many trials and errors. We are going to try these things, and we are going to be ambitious, we are going to be audacious and we are going to try these things and people may not like it. But you know, building an institution and running an institution is meant to be a discourse with the public. So we hear back from them and then we incorporate it, and sometimes we have to insist on what we believe in, which the public may not see immediately. So it’s really a long term process: long term here means through next year, but it also means through 2017 and 2018. The building will probably be finished around late 2017, so we will probably open in early 2018. And then we are also trying to imagine what’s three years, five years, ten years after that. So all these things are happening all at the same time. Can you tell me more about the curatorial team? The curatorial department is not sub-departmentalised. We have curators who focus on contemporary art, ink art, design and architecture and we are in the process of recruiting a moving image curator, so all these people have expertise in different areas or disciplines, but we all work together as a team rather than departmentalising. And education is another area that’s not separate like many other museums, but education staff are called curators, and they are always at the same table with us thinking about education in integrated ways. What are some of the themes you are planning to curate? You know, I have a very long list of ideas that I want to consider, but at the same time I don’t have a short list that’s definite yet. I think what M+ can do and will do is to become an institution that tells you about various strengths of development in modern and contemporary art, design and architecture, and the moving image. Of course, it’s not to say that this topic has not been covered by anybody, there are many scholars, curators and writers and institutions around Asia that have done this job, but I don’t think anyone has done it at this scale and in an integrated way. I’m sounding too abstract and institutional, so I will have to give you some examples, but bear in mind that I don’t intend to be the chief curator who decides what all the programmes and the collection are going to be. So, this is going to be very much all on the table. I’m just giving you a little preview. For instance, one thing Hong Kong is known for is it’s uniquely dense form of urbanism, a very specific kind of architecture that has happened here. I would be very curious to have an exhibition that highlights that. How did this very unique form of architecture, and very dense form of urbanism, which isn’t just about building which is also about the roads, about the organisation of space, how did this come about? There could be a series of exhibitions about this topic that highlight the singularity of Hong Kong as an urban model. You don’t see any other example of this. There are many other densities around the world but no other place looks like Hong Kong, and not only looks like Hong Kong but is as efficient. So, how is this accomplished? You can do a whole series of projects about that. Our collecting activities are already addressing that. Think of another area when you think about Hong Kong cinema. Of course, Wong Kar-wai is one of the masters. And the way in which he developed his unique visual language also has a lot to do with this very specific urban spatial organisation of Hong Kong. Do you see what I mean? I think there is a close relationship between how the space has been organised and developed and how this singular cinematic vision of Wong Kar-wai emerged; it was only possible in Hong Kong, I think. Not to make it sound like the museum is only covering Hong Kong, we are collecting very broadly. I am also very curious to bring together these different pockets of movement that have happened in Hong Kong and China and neighbouring countries in an integrated way. So for instance, now let’s talk about contemporary Chinese art. When you think about the first phase of the development of contemporary Chinese art, first or second phase, I guess in the 1980s in Beijing, before the art market, before any kind of institutions, where all the artists were living essentially living in a large commune in East Village. The iconic works that these artists made many of them were performance based – you can think about people like Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming and all these people – in a sense [these works] came out in a very indigenous context, but I would be curious to see how that can connect to very important performance tendencies in Tokyo in the 1960s. I don’t know if you realise that I did a show at MoMA called “Tokyo 1955″. A lot of that exhibition was dedicated to this performative action based tendencies. So, twenty years apart, two different countries, very different socio-political economic settings. The Chinese artists probably were not aware of what the Japanese artists did twenty, thirty years ago but I think there are ways in which to connect these two, in the larger matrix of art history, that is more than national art history, that is more than regional art history, and of course we have to connect this to even outside world, these Japanese artists working in the 1960s were very much in exchange with artists working in New York at the same time, and I think these Chinese artists find themselves in New York later. And there’s also very close connection separately between China and Europe, different European capitals especially Paris, and same thing with the Tokyo art scene, with European art scene, with Paris as well. And I think we can begin to chart these things and create some kind of a diagram or network of travels of ideas and sharing of tendencies that happened across many different borders. This is the kind of project that can be done in a fantastic exhibition, but it can also be done as a digital project, it can be done as publication or display as collection. These are the kind of things that I would be interested in doing. Innovative museum practices of the future The Gutai retrospective at Guggenheim also tried to make connections between different areas in Asia as well as Europe and New York. Do you feel that by linking all these together at M+ you are doing something that hasn’t been done before? No, I don’t think it hasn’t been done before. It’s certainly part of the development of art history and exhibition making that has been going on for a while. And the example of Gutai exhibition is a very good one, and almost at the same time, my exhibition of Tokyo at MoMA was trying to do the same thing. Although they come from very different approaches, we share the goal of talking about this art scene or art movement as not limited to one place, one country, or one group of people. This approach is very much au courant, if you will. I think this is how every innovative museum practice has to go. Perhaps what is going to distinguish M+’s curatorial approach is, first of all, it’s going to be based here, in Hong Kong, in China, you will have a different perspective. You are situated here which will allow you to look at the local conditions in a much deeper way. Also thanks to proximity we can look at what had happened in China, what has happened in Japan, in Korea, and also different places in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines of course. We will take advantage of our proximity and location so that we can go much more in depth than extra-Asian institutions were able to do. I think it’s generally already the trend that museums previously not known for doing that much on Asia, such as MoMA and Guggenheim, the Tate Modern or the Centre Pompidou, are now making what has come out of Asia as part of their programme. This is an irreversible trtaiend. This is something all these museums are going to do. But where they start is also just like what M+ is doing: it is based on where they are located. If you look at what MoMA and Guggenheim is doing, their collection and programming activities are very much North American and western Europe focused. Or maybe we should say, New York and certain parts of western Europe focused. If you look at Tate Modern or Centre Pompidou, of course their core and their basis are where they are, London and Paris. So they go from there outwards, you can’t do everything but you try to grow from your core to the wider world, and reaches and coverage of that world are all different but we all share our approach as we start from where we are based. We are doing the same thing, so in a sense we are not totally inventing things anew, but it is a totally new thing because no one has done that in this region.

                         Zhang Peili, ‘Series X?’ No. 4 (Gloves), 1987, oil on Canvas, 180 x 200 cm. Image courtesy the artist, M+ museum and UliSigg’s Collection.

香港：艺术同心圆的中心       在藏品和展览方面，这个博物馆是怎样与世界上其他博物馆区分的？       关于藏品：它的核心源自于地域。从香港，中国大陆，以及东亚，包括日本，台湾，韩国和东南亚。所以这是个同心圆，香港作为中心，涟漪般向外发散。并且我认为所有的博物馆都是这么做的。例如纽约当代艺术博物馆：藏品从一开始就相当关注巴黎，因为那里是现代艺术的发源地，但是现在这个已经成熟的中心转移到了纽约，并且成为收藏的核心。我真的认为这是一个非常相似的同心圆的模型，并且是一个对艺术机构而言是非常自然和行之有效的构建藏品库和规划项目的方式。       我要补充的是，我们如何在这种工作方式上进行区分。它被称为M+是因为它不仅仅被设想成为一个博物馆。这并不是因为我们做的不是博物馆。我们做的是博物馆，但是它会是远高于博物馆形式的机构。那意味着什么呢？这是一个涵盖众多内容的大问题，但是我们要做的是一个关于视觉文化的机构，这是由三方面定义的：视觉艺术、设计和建筑，以及移动影像。但是我们并不是分部门运作；纽约当代艺术中心是分部门运作的，但是在这，我们致力于整体运作。这并不是说，一幅画和一个建筑模型以同样的方式对待，一个物件就只是一个物件，只是在字面上的区分。当认识到不同的领域或学科需要特别的条件或需求时，所有的策展人都会聚集到一起讨论。       我认为这个策略是尤其针对香港的，因为这里没有一个已经建成的艺术市场或博物馆文化。所以，从事艺术的人群的流动性非常大。建筑师常常被认为是艺术家。他们自由的迁移，他们可能是雕塑家，水墨艺术家或摄影师。美有多种形式，并且一个地方的魅力在于它没有被过度的资本化和制度化。我们正在构建一个大型的机构，必须对当地的独特条件做出回应。我们不要把它放在建筑和设计的方盒子里，但是我们要去回应那群流动性强的创意工作者们。所以，如果我们成功了，我认为这将是一个创新，它将使M+博物馆成为二十一世纪博物馆的模型。 Hong Kong: the epicentre of art’s concentric circle How will the museum differentiate itself from other international museums around the world in terms of collection and exhibitions? The collection: the core of it is going to come from here. From Hong Kong, Mainland China and wider East Asia including Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Southeast Asia. So it’s like this concentric circle, Hong Kong is the epicentre, and it ripples out. And I think that again all major museums do that. I think you can say that about MoMA for instance: the very beginning of the collection was very much about Paris, that’s the birthplace of modern art, but by the time the institution matured the centre had moved to New York, and that became the core of the collection. I actually think that it’s a very similar kind of a concentric model, and this is a very natural and proven way for an institution to build its collection, and also programmes, as well. I should add how we are going to differentiate ourselves on top of this natural way of working. It’s called M+ because it is suppose to be more than a museum. That’s not to say that we are not going to be a museum. We are going to be a museum, but we are going to be an institution that does more than the established mode of being a museum. So what does that mean? There can be many different things and this is the big question that we have to answer, but we are meant to be an institution of visual culture which is defined by three areas: visual arts, design and architecture and the moving image. But we are not going to departmentalise; MoMA is departmentalised, and here we are committed to keeping it as one team. That’s not to say that a painting is same as an architectural model, an object and an object, there are literally apples and oranges. But while recognising that there are specific conditions or requirements for different areas and different disciplines, all the curators are going to be at the same table. I think that strategy is especially cogent for Hong Kong because there hasn’t been an established art market for instance or museum culture, so a lot of the people have been very fluid. An architect is often an artist. They move fluidly, they could be a sculptor, an ink artist or a photographer. And this is in many ways the beauty and the fascinating part of being in a place that hasn’t been overly capitalised and institutionalised. And while we are building a large institution, we have to respond to the unique condition that is here. Let’s not put them in rigid boxes where you belong only in design and architecture, but we have to respond to how these creative people have moved in this fluid way. So if we do this successfully, I think this will be the innovative aspect that will distinguish M+ as a twenty-first century model for a museum.

                         Image of West Kowloon Cultural District site. Image courtesy M+ museum and WKCDA.

面对的期望和挑战       为了实现对M+博物馆的展望，你面对的挑战是什么？       有很多很多对M+博物馆的期望，也有很多对M+博物馆的批评。老实地讲，我并不明白为什么，可能是我待在这里的时间还不够久。但是我明白这是一个高度期待和非常有争议的项目。这个我可以肯定。但是在我的印象中，因为这是一个政府项目而使得一些本地人对它怀有疑虑，因为他们对政府普遍地存在一些怀疑。所以，不存在任何信任。但是我想说的是，这是我所做过的一个非常深思熟虑和透明的政府项目。整个西九龙文化区项目已经存在很多年了。有人告诉我，它从90年代中期就已经开始了。我们要建造博物馆的这块填海区已经存在很多年了。持续了这么久的原因是他们必须经过这些阶段和深刻的思考。我想他们是非常严肃的对待这件事情的。并且他们聘用了非常有才华的人为执行董事---- Lars Nittve。他知道怎样建构一个博物馆。       所以项目从最开始到概念设计，再到实际完成是经过深思熟虑的过程，这是让我来到这里的原因。但是，我被警告说这里仍存在一些人没有被说服，他们不相信我们正在做的，所以，这是一个挑战，并且我对这件事是务实的，有计划性的。       有人经常问我公众的舆论和批评，但我的立场是不回应，公共群体并不是一个单向整体。我认为，讨论仅仅是一个让人们觉得自己可以以一种粗暴的方式畅所欲言地表达意见的表象。这正是建造一个文化机构的定义；我们不是建造一个持同一种观点的人们只是经过的场所。我们不是要建造一个罗马斗兽场。我们不是在做面包和马戏。我们在建造一个满是实验性想法的宫殿，在这里有些想法具有愉悦性，有些具有娱乐性，有些想法甚至会激怒你。这意味着需要一个智能的组织方式，所以带着这个信念，我接受这个挑战。同时这是对每个人、公众舆论的挑战，同时也是我们要不间断地和公众对话、沟通，但不能期待你能说服或转变每一个人。我们只能通过严肃的、策展人的真正专业的方式，尽力去建立公众的深度信任 。 Meeting expectations and challenges What are some of your challenges in realising the vision for M+ museum? There are many, many expectations about M+. And there are many many criticisms about M+ too. And to be honest, I don’t quite understand what they are yet because I haven’t been here long enough. But I know it’s a highly anticipated and highly contentious project. I think I can say that outright. But my impression is that because this is a governmental project some of the local people are suspicious, just because they have general suspicion about government in general. So it’s not seen with any kind of trust; but what I meant to say is that it’s a government project that I see as being done with great thoughtfulness and transparency. The whole West Kowloon Cultural District project has been around for many years. I was told that this has been around since mid to late 1990s. We are being built on a reclaimed land so this large plot of land has been there for many years. The reason why it is taking so long is because they have gone through these stages and put a lot of thought and consideration into it. I think they thought about this in a really serious way. And they have hired extremely talented people, starting from the executive director Lars Nittve, someone who knows how to build a museum. So from the very beginning through these conceptual stages to actual implementation, this is being done is a very thoughtful way, which is what convinced me to come here. But I was warned, and it was already clear that there are voices out there in the public arena that are still not convinced, not trustful of what we are doing, so this is obviously going to be a challenge, and I am realistic and pragmatic about these things. People have already asked me often about public opinions and all these criticisms, but my position is that there is not one voice, the public is not a one dimensional, monolithic entity. I think the discussion is only a sign that this is clearly a place where people feel they can voice their opinions, and they do it in a very vocal and very rambunctious way. That’s the very definition of building a cultural institution; we are not building a place where people come through and people have one opinion. We are not building a Roman Colosseum. We are not doing bread and circuses. We are trying to build a palace and laboratory of ideas, where some ideas are going to be pleasurable, some ideas are going to entertaining, and some ideas are going to make you think and maybe even provoke you. This is meant to be an intellectual organisation, so it’s with that belief that I am approaching this big challenge. And this is a big challenge for everyone, public criticism, and it is our job to deal with it, to constantly converse with people, discourse with people but without the expectation that we are going to convince and convert every single person. We can only try to build a deep level of public trust by being serious, by being genuine and doing our job as curators in the most professional way.

                         Wang Keping, ‘Chain’, 1979, wooden sculpture, 53 x 35 x 13.5 cm. Image courtesy the artist and M+ museum UliSigg collection.

乌利•希克的百宝箱       据最近的报道，乌利-希克为博物馆捐赠了主要的中国当代艺术品。这些作品是怎样融入博物馆广阔收藏视野的？       乌利的当代中国艺术藏品是非常著名的，这不仅是因为它的尺寸，也是因为它无与伦比的质量。我认为这是M+博物馆收藏的明智之举。并且据有关记录记载，乌克曾多次提到，他非常希望将中国艺术品送回中国大陆的艺术机构，但是他从没有找到这样的地方。M+博物馆就是最好的归宿，因为这里是一国两制的政治体系，香港不同于大陆，但又是大陆的一部分。你可能知道这里有多少游客和来自大陆的访客，所以博物馆有大量大陆观众。通过这些藏品作为跳板，我们很好地讲述了一个有关中国当代艺术从70年代末到现在的发展的权威性故事。这是决定藏品何去何从的重要部分，并且确立了核心。我们要在这里止步吗？不，我们不会。       在我来这以前，策展团队已经做出了很出色工作，并且也获得了香港艺术家的作品。在过去的几年中，香港同大陆间已经存在艺术交流，但是都是相当独立地发展着。这是另一个非常重要的藏品领域，我们已经开展了工作，并且做了很多。我们也已经开始关注台湾、日本和韩国，这是三个主要的艺术场景，并且我们会很严肃地对待。这个拥有1500个艺术作品的藏品库对讲述这个故事是非常有帮助的，因为这里使艺术史或设计史以更简单的方式交织或平行。我们的百宝箱已经开启了。 UliSigg’s treasure chest Recently it was reported that UliSigg donated a major contemporary Chinese art collection to the museum. How do these works fit into the broader vision for the museum’s collection? Uli’s collection of contemporary Chinese art is well known not only because of its size but perhaps because of its unparalleled quality.  I think it was such a coup for M+ to acquire this collection. And Uli has gone on record a number of times saying that he has always hoped to return this very important collection of Chinese art to an institution in Mainland China, but he just could not find one. M+ is the best prospect, and this is one country, two systems, separate from Mainland, but still a part of China. You probably have heard about how many tourists and temporary visitors there are in Hong Kong from Mainland China, so this is there for the Mainland Chinese audience. By having this collection as the springboard of our collection, we are very well poised to tell an authoritative story about the development of contemporary Chinese art from the late 1970s to the present. This is a very important portion of what the collection is going to be and it certainly does a very good job of establishing the core. Are we going to stop here? No, we are not. Before I came on board, the curatorial team had already done a very good job of also acquiring works by Hong Kong artists. In the last few years, there’s been back and forth between Hong Kong and the rest of China, but until recently these were quite separate developments. That was another area that was very important for the collection to go into, we have already started doing that and have done quite a lot. We have already also begun to go into what has happened in Taiwan, Japan and Korea, three major art scenes, and we are going to go into that more seriously. It is really helpful to have this one major collection of almost 1500 works to come in to tell one very solid story because then there are either art histories or design histories that can intersect with it or parallel to it in a much easier way. We are starting with a treasure chest already.

                         Wang Guangyi, ‘Death of Marat’, 1986, oil on canvas, 150 x 200 cm. Image courtesy the artist and the M+ museum UliSigg collection.

你会只收藏亚洲的艺术品吗？或者说你会收藏亚洲之外的艺术品吗？       我认为，我们主要的艺术收藏将来自香港、中国大陆、东亚，甚至东南亚。但是这些将占我们藏品库的百分之六十到七十，剩下的部分将来自世界的其他地方。作为艺术家，如果你面对的是现代和当代艺术，那么你会不断的旅行，以及和外面的人交流。如果香港艺术家或日本艺术家走出国门，他们经常会去欧洲或美国。遵循这种联系，绘制艺术家所属的圈层图，找出谁对这些艺术家产生重要影响对我们十分重要，以确保我们在我们的藏品和项目设置中将其表现出来。因此，我们不会仅仅是香港、亚洲或东亚的博物馆。我们会做的更多。 Will you be collecting only Asian art or will you be collecting outside of Asia? I think the core of our collection is going to be Hong Kong, China, wider East Asia and even Southeast Asia. But that will make up sixty or seventy percent, but the rest of [the collection] should cover the rest of the world. Artists, if you are dealing with modern and contemporary period, were constantly travelling and networking with people outside. If Hong Kong artists or Japanese artists went outside of their own countries, they often went to Europe or America. It is important for us to follow these connections and chart the communities that artists were a part of, who were the important influences on these people, and to make sure that we represent that in our collection and programming. So no, we will not be exclusively Hong Kong, Asian or East Asian museum. We will do much more than that.

                         Stanley Wong, ‘Lanwei 04 Fly Away Guangzhou’ 2006.Archival inkjet print.Image courtesy M+ museum.

博物馆怎样获得藏品？来自艺术家，收藏家还是通过拍卖？       包括以上的所有。我们中的许多人是当代艺术策展人，所以我们关注的是展馆里发生着什么，非盈利空间、双年展，以及博物馆里正在发生的事，不只在香港、纽约、巴黎、伦敦、巴黎。所有这些地方，我们都要关注。但是，由于亚洲的艺术市场已经成倍地增长，可还没有成形，有时你要直接去找艺术家，有时候你要去找直接从艺术家那收集藏品的收藏家。同时，在一些特定的地区，例如在东南亚，画廊市场并没有多大发展，拍卖则扮演着更重要的角色。有时候，艺术作品完成后直接拿去拍卖。所以，我们所做的并不是太多，我们收集了大约一年的时间。因此现在所有的一切都是新的，但是我想我们会直接去拍卖行，我们会去任何重要作品可能出现的地方。 How will the museum acquire works? From artists, collectors and/or through auctions? All of the above. As you know, many of us are contemporary art curators, so we see what is happening with gallery exhibitions, non-profit spaces, biennales, and what is happening in museum not only in Hong Kong, New York, Paris and London. All of these places, and of course we follow that. But, again because the art market in Asia has grown exponentially but is not as established, sometimes you have to go directly to the artists, and sometimes you have to go to collectors who collected directly from the artists, and in certain areas, say for instance in Southeast Asia where gallery scene is even less developed, auction houses play even bigger roles. Sometimes works go directly to auction houses. So we haven’t done that so much after all, we have been essentially collecting for about a year, so everything is new at this point, but I would imagine that we will go directly to auction houses. We will go anywhere where the most important works will appear.

                         M+ museum Found Space. Design of interior. Image courtesy M+ museum.

规划蓝图       你怎么看博物馆在未来十年的发展？       这是一个完全开放的问题。我们确切地知道我们要积极地建立藏品库，我们称这种方式为异地收藏展览项目。我们已经在做，并且将在直到2017年的未来四年持续做。然后，我们会开放博物馆的大部分来展示这些藏品，并且马上开始展览活动。       你的开展主题是什么？或者它还在整合中？       我们正在从众多的可切入的领域中做研究。我们不知道是否能涵盖所有。我是地图和图表狂，它们使我非常兴奋。我和我的团队一起做这件事情，并且去研究何种领域才是明智选择，同时以结构化的方式来建立我们的知识蓝图。所以，我会在之后的六个月里做这些事情，同时它会给我们清晰的线路图。有时候线路图会出现错误，我们就来改正它。因此我想这些过程会发生在未来的三到四年。但在开展前一到两年，我们会坐下来严肃地讨论怎样展出藏品。我们要做什么样的展览。这些展览中可能会包括一些很不起眼，却非常有创新性的作品，同时一些展览将会一鸣惊人。我想最后发生在香港一鸣惊人的展览是来自匹兹堡沃霍尔博物馆的安迪-沃霍尔展。我认为这是一个杰出展览的模板，你可以做出一个来自香港艺术家或亚洲设计师的出色展览。这是一个博物馆经营者应该思考的。在几个月或者几年之后再来找我吧，那时我们将会来讨论整个过程。 Mapping the intellectual landscape How do you see the museum developing in the next ten years? It’s a wide open question. What we do know is that we are going to aggressively build our collection while doing what we call offsite exhibitions and programmes, which we are already doing for the next four years till 2017. Then we are going to open the museum with probably a large part of it dedicated to showing the collection, and starting the exhibition programme right away. Do you have a theme for the opening exhibition? Or is it in the process of coming together? We are in the process of charting dozens and dozens of areas that we can go into. We don’t know if we can cover all of that. I am kind of a bit of a map or chart nerd and this is exciting for me. I do this sitting down with curators in my team and really kind of see what are the areas that we should go into collection-wise, and beginning to build our intellectual landscape in a structured way. So I would imagine that I would like to intensely do that in the next six months or so, and that will give us some kind of clarity and also serve as some kind of a roadmap. And sometimes roadmaps are wrong and you have to make corrections. So I think these things will happen at least for the next three or four years in a really intense way. But maybe one or two years before the opening of the exhibition we will really seriously have to sit down and say how we are going to display the collection? What are the exhibitions that we are going to show? And these exhibitions some of them may cover something very obscure, but very innovative kind of scholarship, and some of exhibitions are going to be blockbuster. But what does a blockbuster show mean? I have yet to figure out because there are many different forms of blockbuster. I think the last blockbuster that happened in Hong Kong was a Warhol show from the collection of Warhol museum in Pittsburg. I think that’s one model of blockbuster but you can deal with a Hong Kong artist or an Asian designer and still make a blockbuster exhibition. This is what people who run a museum have to think about. Come back to me maybe in a few months or maybe in a couple of years, and we will talk about the progress.

出处：本文译自artradarjournal.com/，转载请注明出处。 编辑：刘汁，卢荣姝