【中文标题】中国的历史是由参观者编写的
【原文标题】Party Piece
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Hannah Beech
【原文链接】http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2069268,00.html
尽管世界各国的国家博物馆都会刻意粉饰自己国家革命年代里令人不快的时期，但是北京这所博物馆用极为小心谨慎的手段描述了中国的历史，让它看起来是一个最终必然被共产主义统治的无可辩驳、毫无漏洞的过程。
迎春花正在开放，当我走过新装修的国家博物馆时，可以看到士兵们迈着正步走过北京天安门广场。这里正在举办一个展览“复兴之路”，内容是彰显“共产党领导下中国的辉煌历史”。那么，这个包含了2200件“一级”文物、占据了整个博物馆五分之一面积的长期展览都包括了哪些内容呢？我逐个参观了每一个展厅里面难以辨别的古物，从1957年中国跳高世界记录获得者的金牌，到2001年宣布中国进入世界贸易组织的小槌。展览最后一部分是一个玻璃展柜，里面放着旋转的电话、寻呼机和手机——甚至还有一台iPhone 4。旁边的英文说明牌上写道：“这是改革开放以来的各类通讯设备。”
经过耗资3.8亿美元的漫长装修，中国国家博物馆在4月重张开放。它现在是世界上最大的博物馆，105万件文物散布在19.2万平米的展馆面积中——相当于27个足球场。它不规则延伸的建筑结构可以与圣彼得堡修道院博物馆和巴黎卢浮宫相媲美（后者已经不是世界上最大的博物馆了）。在这个一切都崇尚最高级的国家中，这个机构背负着一个宏大的使命：向世人展示中国5000年的文明，当然还有近代共产党统治下国家取得的成就。为了在文化方面与这个国家的经济实力相搭配，博物馆刻意展示它所使用的尖端科技，整个重建工作是在顶尖德国建筑公司指导下进行的。中国文化遗产学会名誉主席罗哲文在1959年国家博物馆刚开放时，就一直在参与相关的工作，他说：“翻新后的博物馆是一家世界级的博物馆，我对此非常满意。”
但是，如果说国家博物馆在规模和硬件方面无出其右，那么它在博物馆最核心的价值方面——对历史的描述——则是令人失望的。任何一家博物馆都多少会反映出统治者希望人们看到的东西，例如美国的博物馆就对奴隶制度的恐怖和对土著居民的大屠杀轻描淡写。但是，西方文化机构的近视缺陷完全不能与中国国家博物馆所戴的厚厚的眼罩相比，它那些经过过滤的、亲政府的展览内容玷污了它所宣称的使命目标——跻身世界最优秀的文化机构行列。香港大学艺术系教授Greg Thomas说：“之所以叫国家博物馆，就是因为它被赋予了非常清晰的使命——明确国家性质，为共产主义的崛起树立国家性的标志。很多国家由政府出资兴建的博物馆在一定程度上也会有这样的举措，但绝不会沦为官方宣传的工具。”
中国国家博物馆新馆正在举办两个所谓的核心展览。一个是“复兴之路”，另一个是“古代中国”，后者展出了一些令人惊艳的铜器、陶器、翡翠、书画、瓷器和其它珍宝。但是其中一些展品的介绍材料却公然带有政治倾向，试图呈现出在农业乌托邦中，不同种族的人和谐幸福地生活在一起的假象。华盛顿Smithsonian's Freer和Arthur M. Sackler画廊古代中国艺术品管理员Jenny F. So说：“最先进的照明设备等博物馆硬件都很容易得到，但是中国通常缺少的是富有智慧的见解和深厚的学术背景知识，他们因此无法让观众觉得展览有趣、平易近人，而总是人为施加一些沉重的政治包袱。”
“复兴之路”展览的健忘症也同样证明了这一点。1966年到1976年的文化大革命中，共产党制造了社会各阶层的大动乱，这段历史只用一张高高挂在背景墙上的照片草草带过。展览中没有直接提到大跃进，1958年这场灾难性的经济改革试验引发了随后的大饥荒，3000万人死亡。自然，1989年×××事件也根本没有提及。香港大学另一位艺术专家David Clarke说：“这所博物馆中的意识形态占据了绝对的比重。”
我第一次参观国家博物馆是在15年前，当时这里其实是两家博物馆——中国革命博物馆和中国历史博物馆。我依稀记得阴冷的气味、混乱的展品和鲜见的英文标识。这次重修几乎让博物馆的面积变为原来的三倍，本来应当同时改变我原来的印象。但是，即使灯光笼罩了豪华的入口大厅、自助导游设备可以把信息发到参观者的手机上，其它一切都没有改变。一位博物馆的工作人员告诉我，如果我在参观之后不写一些正面报道，他们就不让我进去。
政治依然无处不在。这里首次接待游客的展览是由三家德国博物馆主办的“启蒙的艺术”展览（译者注：见【11.04.07 经济学家】中国启蒙：拥抱艺术，忘记思想）。但是其中完全没有提及启蒙的核心主题，比如个人的言论表达和挑战权威。一家国有媒体对展览的报道甚至用“具有启发性的艺术”来误导“启蒙”这个词的真正含义。
德国外交部长Guido Westerwelle在4月1日主持了国家博物馆的开馆仪式，在他离开北京之后不到一天，著名的当代艺术家艾未未就在同一个机场被捕。这是一场行动的一部分，专门打击敢于对抗政府的自由思想者。艾曾经为国家博物馆的翻修提供过咨询意见，他帮忙设计的2008北京奥运会体育场，其实就部分借鉴了国家博物馆用来彰显中国伟大成就的雕刻饰带。但是对他来说，政治信仰与艺术是密不可分的。中国国家博物馆新馆的太上皇对此更是了然于胸。
原文：
History is written by the victors Although national museums the world over are guilty of glossing over uncomfortable periods in a country's evolution, the Beijing facility is disturbingly meticulous in its presentation of Chinese history as a seamless timeline leading, with dialectical inevitability, to communist rule
Spring flowers bloomed and soldiers could be seen goose-stepping across Tiananmen Square as I walked through the recently renovated National Museum in Beijing. A new exhibit, "The Road of Rejuvenation," promised to highlight "the glorious history of China under the leadership of the Communist Party." So what's included in a permanent show that contains 2,220 "First-Rank Cultural Objects" and occupies roughly one-fifth of the massive museum's exhibition space? I made my way through room after room of obscure communist artifacts, ranging from a medal awarded to the Chinese 1957 high-jump world-record holder to the gavel used to announce China's 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization. One of the final displays was a glass case containing rotary phones, pagers and cell phones — even an iPhone 4. "This is dozens of communications equipment since reform and opening up," read the accompanying English panel.
After a long, $380 million refurbishment, China's National Museum fully reopened in April. It is now the biggest in the world, with 1.05 million cultural relics spread over 192,000 sq m of floor space — about 27 soccer fields. In a country obsessed with superlatives, this institution has big ambitions: to present China's 5,000-year civilization — not to mention its more recent communist triumphs — in a sprawling structure that rivals St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum or Paris' Louvre (which it has now supplanted as the planet's largest museum). Befitting the cultural expression of a rising superpower, the museum boasts cutting-edge imported technology and was rebuilt with direction from a leading German architectural firm. "The renovated museum is a world-class museum," says Luo Zhewen, honorary president of the China Society of Cultural Heritage, who has been involved with the National Museum since it opened its doors in 1959. "I'm very satisfied."
But if the National Museum impresses in terms of size and hardware, it disappoints where it counts most — in its narrative. Every museum reflects what its overseers want the public to see. American museums, for instance, can be accused of glossing over the horrors of slavery or the massacre of native populations. But the myopia of Western galleries can't compare with the blinders worn by the Chinese National Museum's organizers, whose sanitized, pro-government displays undermine the institution's stated goal of ranking among the world's premier cultural institutions. "The fact that it's even called a national museum means that it's a very conscious attempt to define national identity and provide a national symbol for the rise of the communist state," says Greg Thomas, chair of the fine-arts department at the University of Hong Kong. "Many countries' state-sponsored museums do this to a certain extent, but not with anywhere near the same level of official propaganda."
China's new National Museum houses two so-called core displays. "The Road of Rejuvenation" is one; the other is "Ancient China," a greatest-hits collection of bronzes, pottery, jade, calligraphy and porcelain, among other treasures. But some of the exhibit's explanatory material is blatantly political, presenting the illusion of a peasant utopia in which different ethnic groups banded together in productive harmony. "Museum hardware, like state-of-the art lighting, is easy to import," says Jenny F. So, a former curator of ancient Chinese art at the Smithsonian's Freer and Arthur M. Sackler galleries in Washington, D.C. "But what you don't often have in China is the intellectual input and academic background needed to make displays accessible and interesting to the audience without weighing things down with a heavy political message."
The amnesia in "The Road of Rejuvenation" is equally telling. The 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, in which the Communist Party unleashed a decade of deadly chaos, is covered with a single photo high up on a back wall. There is no direct mention of the Great Leap Forward, the disastrous economic experiment launched in 1958 that triggered a famine in which 30 million died. Naturally, mention of 1989's brutally suppressed Tiananmen democracy movement is omitted. "The ideological weight of this museum is crushing," says David Clarke, another art expert at the University of Hong Kong.
I first visited the National Museum more than 15 years ago, when it was actually two museums — the Museum of the Chinese Revolution and the Museum of Chinese History. I remember a dank smell, bewildering displays and scant English signage. The renovation, which almost tripled the museum's size, was supposed to change all that. But even as light shines through the soaring new entrance hall and self-guided tours are readied for transmission to visitors' cell phones, much else remains old-style. A museum employee told me that if I wasn't going to write something positive, I wouldn't be let in.
Politics remain omnipresent. The first visiting exhibition, organized by a trio of German museums, is called "The Art of Enlightenment." But key Enlightenment themes, like individual expression or questioning authority, are missing from the text panels. A state-media write-up of the exhibit even glossed over the word Enlightenment in favor of the term "the illuminative arts."
Less than a day after German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle flew out of Beijing, where he inaugurated the show on April 1, celebrated contemporary artist Ai Weiwei was detained at the same airport, as part of an ongoing crackdown on liberal thinkers who have dared to stand up to the state. Ai once consulted on the National Museum's renovation, and the stadium he helped design for the 2008 Beijing Olympics is part of a National Museum frieze dedicated to China's greatest accomplishments. But to him, political belief was inseparable from art. The czars of China's new National Museum understand that all too plainly. |
狗仔卡
发表于 2011-5-26 11:45
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显身卡
发表于 2011-5-26 12:39
美国有多少博物馆是介绍抗美援朝 和 越南战争的
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