艾未未新作在旧金山"恶魔岛"展出

SAN FRANCISCO — Judging from the large bags of colorful Legos on the floor and dozens of plastic base plates piled on tables, this room could have been the activities station for a well-funded summer camp. And the five women and men drifting in and out, slicing open boxes and rooting around for the right size toy bricks, were young enough to pass as camp counselors.

旧金山——从地上放着的大袋大袋彩色乐高积木和桌子上的几十个塑料底座判断，这个房间像一个经费充裕的夏令营活动站。五个男女忙进忙出，他们划开盒子，寻找大小合适的积木；这几个人年纪轻轻，很容易被人当成夏令营的辅导员。

Only the place where they were working is the opposite of summer camp: Alcatraz, the notoriously bleak military prison turned maximum-security penitentiary turned national park. With its banks of small windows and a “gun gallery” for surveillance, this building is where inmates once laundered military uniforms. It’s usually off limits to tourists.

只不过这里跟夏令营正好相反——这里是阿尔卡特拉斯，它起初是一座凄凉暗淡、臭名昭著的军方监狱，后来成了最高安全级别的监狱，最后又变成了国家公园。这栋建筑有成排的小窗口和一座用来监视犯人的“枪廊”，犯人曾在这里给部队洗军装。该楼平时禁止游客入内。

But starting Sept. 27, visitors will be able to see for themselves, spread across the floor, where so many Legos were heading: an ambitious installation by the Chinese activist-artist Ai Weiwei, featuring 176 portraits of prisoners of conscience and political exiles around the world — from the South African leader Nelson Mandela and the Tibetan pop singer Lolo to the American whistle-blower Edward Snowden — composed of 1.2 million Lego pieces. The work is part of an exhibition running through April 26 called “@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz,” organized by For-Site, a San Francisco producer of public art, in the prison hospital, A Block cells, dining hall and that former laundry building.

但是从9月27日起，游客们就可以入内一探究竟了——许多的乐高积木在地上铺陈开来：这件规模宏大的装置艺术是中国社会活动者、艺术家艾未未的作品，由176幅来自世界各地的政治犯与政治流亡者的肖像构成，从南非领导人纳尔逊·曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)、西藏流行歌手洛洛(Lolo)到美国的揭秘者爱德华·斯诺登(Edward Snowden)，它们由120万块乐高积木制成。这件作品是截止至4月26日结束的展览“@Large: 艾未未在阿尔卡特拉斯”的一部分，展览由旧金山公共艺术制作机构Fore-Site承办，地点设在监狱医院、A区牢房、用餐大厅和这座以前的洗衣楼。

Given Mr. Ai’s sharp critiques of the Chinese government and the tireless campaigning for freedom of expression that led to his own imprisonment in 2011, he could have included himself in the group portrait. He did not. But his 81-day detainment, a numbing and mostly solitary confinement, fueled some of the exhibition’s themes, and the seizure of his passport at that time — it was never returned — has shaped the making of this show.

艾未未因为对中国政府的尖锐评论，以及为言论自由的奋力抗争，结果在2011年受到监禁，他本可以把自己的肖像也加入这组群像之中。但他并没有这样做。81天的关押经历——令人麻木而且基本上是单独监禁——启发了该展览中的若干主题；当时他的护照也遭没收，至今尚未归还，这也决定了该展览的制作方式。

“Even now, I am still in a soft detention, my passport withheld by the state and my right to move freely across borders restricted,” he explained in a series of lengthy email exchanges.

“直到如今，我还在软禁之中，我的护照被当局扣押，我自由出国的正当权利受到限制，”他在一系列很长的电子邮件往来中写道。

His situation makes the “@Large” title seem wishful, if not ironic, and raises questions both practical and philosophical. How exactly did this outspoken artist manage to realize this site-specific exhibition without ever visiting the site and despite an ever-present risk of reincarceration? And to what extent are installations like this — which required more than 100 volunteers in San Francisco and For-Site staffers on Alcatraz Island helping with assembly, as well as Amnesty International contributing research — truly Mr. Ai’s work?

他的处境令“@Large”这个展览标题显得即便不是充满讽刺，也如同一种愿望，并且提出了实务层面与哲学层面的问题。这位坦率直言的艺术家根本无法参观场地，还常常冒着再度遭到监禁的危险，他又该怎样实现这个在特定场地举办的展览呢？此外，这件装置作品需要旧金山的100多名志愿者与For-Site的员工到阿尔卡特拉斯岛拼装完成，大赦国际组织也协助进行了研究工作，那么，这样的装置作品在多大程度上真正是艾未未的作品呢？

Certainly, the monumental Lego installation, “Trace,” has his fingerprints all over it. A few celebrity freedom fighters aside, most of the portraits showcase figures “forgotten by society,” he said. One is Shin Suk-ja, a South Korean prisoner of North Korea who was sent into penal labor with her two daughters in 1987 after her husband defected to Europe. Ms. Shin appears to have died in captivity, according to an information binder provided by For-Site.

当然，这件丰碑式的乐高装置“Trace”上到处都有艾未未的痕迹。他说，除了几个著名的自由斗士，大多数肖像展现的是“被社会遗忘”的人。其中包括申淑子(Shin Suk-ja)，她是一个被朝鲜关押的韩国人，1987年，因为丈夫叛逃欧洲，她和两个女儿一起被关进劳改营。根据For-Site提供的资料，申淑子似乎已在囚禁中死去。

The new work recalls Mr. Ai’s responses to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, which provoked him to identify students killed as a result of shoddy school construction and to create perhaps his most powerful installation, “Remembering.” His mural in Munich in 2009 used 9,000 custom-made children’s backpacks to spell out his message: “She lived happily in this world for seven years.”

这件新作令人想起艾未未对2008年四川地震的反应。很多学生因质量低劣的校舍建筑在地震中死去，艾未未确认了这些学生的身份后，创作了可能是他最有力量的装置作品《记住》。这是2009年他在慕尼黑的墙体装置艺术，使用了9000个特别定制的学生背包，拼出了他的信息：“她在这个世界上开心地生活过七年”。

His Lego work likewise provides a visual accounting, creating conceptually a community of prisoners too large to be ignored.

他的这件乐高作品也同样提供了一种视觉记述，从概念上创作出一群巨大到无法忽视的囚犯。

“I think it’s a big leap for Weiwei, addressing free speech issues and human rights violations not just in China but globally,” said Cheryl Haines, the founder of For-Site. Asked whether his broader focus could help protect him from retaliation or reincarceration by his own government, she responded: “I honestly don’t know the answer. The Chinese government is so unpredictable in its responses.”

“我认为这是艾未未的飞跃，它表达出言论自由问题与对人权的侵犯不只在中国有，也是全球问题，”For-Site的创始人谢里尔·海恩斯(Cheryl Haines)说。在问到他这种更为广泛的关注是否会免遭中国政府的报复或再次监禁时，海恩斯答道：“我真的不知道答案。中国政府的反应太难预测了。”

Mr. Ai, long a fan of clay bricks for their simplicity, said the idea of toy bricks came in part from witnessing his 5-year-old son’s “endless passion” for Legos. “They are very simple and straightforward, but can also be easily destroyed and taken apart, ready to be remade and reimagined,” he wrote. “I like the idea of using this language and material as an expression of human nature and the hand of creation.”

艾未未长期以来都喜欢砖块的简洁，他说使用玩具积木这个主意部分是来自他五岁的儿子对乐高积木“无穷的热情”。“它们简单直接，但可以轻易被摧毁和分解，随时可以进行重建和重新想象，”他写道。“我喜欢运用这种语言和材料来表达人性与造物主之手的想法。”

He largely managed the assembly process from his Beijing studio. He made several sample Lego portraits before generating digital blueprints for the full suite, breaking down each portrait into four or more templates used by the volunteers. To keep details of the show under wraps until completion, volunteers were never shown images of the full artwork.

他主要是在北京的工作室管理组装过程。他做了几个乐高肖像样品，之后又制作了整套作品的数码设计图，把每个肖像分解为四个或更多供志愿者使用的模版。为了在完成之前不泄露展览的细节，志愿者们都没有看过完整作品的图像。

He also sent three assistants from his studio to California to coordinate the Lego project, and two others (“different skill sets,” he noted) to install near it a massive dragon kite made by Chinese artisans from traditional bamboo and fabric. The body of the kite features emblems of some 30 countries implicated in “Trace.”

他还派遣工作室的三名助手到加利福尼亚协助完成这个乐高项目，并派另外两人（“不同的技能”他说）去安装旁边的一个巨大的龙风筝，它由传统的竹子和织物制成，由中国手工艺人制作。风筝的身体上有“Trace”中涉及的大约30个左右的国家的象征图案。

The kite is “symbolic of freedom,” he wrote, even more so within a prison setting. The work also has personal associations, from his boyhood in the 1960s, when he built a kite with his father, the poet Ai Qing, who by then had been banished by Mao’s regime to the Gobi Desert and forced to clean toilets.

艾未未写道，这个风筝是“自由的象征”，特别是它被放置在一个监狱的环境里。这件作品也有个人化的联想，涉及他的童年，那是20世纪60年代，他和父亲，诗人艾青一起做了一个风筝，艾青当时被毛泽东政府流放到戈壁沙漠，被迫做清扫厕所的劳动。

The family lived in a hole dug in the earth. To build a kite, father and son obtained the bamboo rods from a neighbor’s door curtain and “collected string from all families nearby,” Mr. Ai wrote.

全家人生活在一个地上挖出的洞里。为了做风筝，父子两人弄来邻居门帘上的竹篾，还“去附近所有人家讨来了线，”艾未未写道。

“All materials were precious,” he continued. “I will never forget the first time I saw the kite hanging far from us in the wind, so far out that our eyes had to search for its position in the sky.”

“所有材料都很珍贵，”他写道，“我永远不会忘记第一次看着风筝在风中高飞时的情形，飞那么高，我们只得在空中搜寻它的位置。”

Another installation, set in the penitentiary dining hall, allows visitors to send postcards to many of the prisoners in “Trace,” a gesture inspired by Mr. Ai’s memory of his own acute loneliness when detained. Clusters of tiny porcelain flowers planted in toilets and sinks of the hospital examination rooms reflect his penchant for using this traditional material in unlikely ways.

另一件装置放在监狱的犯人饭厅，参观者可以写明信片给“Trace”中涉及的许多囚犯，灵感来自艾未未对自己拘押期间极度孤独感的记忆。在医疗检查室内，有一簇簇小小的陶瓷花朵从马桶和水槽里生长出来，这反映出他以不太可能的方式使用传统材料的倾向。

Though Mr. Ai, 57, is Internet-savvy, with more than 250,000 Twitter followers, he is blocked from visiting certain websites and has slow download times like other Chinese residents. He thus relied on For-Site as his collaborator on one research-intensive, permissions-heavy art work in particular: a sound installation in Cell Block A. The cells, usually closed to tourists, look decrepit, their paint peeling and plumbing corroded, but 12 will be opened for visitors to enter, sit on a stool and listen to recordings by famous political prisoners, from the music of Fela Kuti of Nigeria and Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist group, to poetry readings by Liao Yiwu of China and Mahjoub Sharif, who died in April in Sudan.

艾未未57岁，精通互联网，在Twitter上有超过25万名关注者，但他和其他中国居民一样，某些特定网站无法访问，有时下载速度很慢。A区牢房的声音装置展品需要大量研究和许可工作，因此在这个展品上他需要依靠For-Site这个合作者。这些牢房，通常不对游客开放，它们看上去非常破旧，油漆斑驳，水管已遭腐蚀，但是其中12间将向参观者开放，允许他们入内，坐在一个凳子上倾听若干著名政治犯的录音，其中包括尼加拉瓜的费拉·库蒂(Fela Kuti)与俄罗斯的女性主义团体“Pussy Riot”的音乐，还有中国的廖亦武以及今年四月在苏丹去世的马乔布·谢里夫(Mahjoub Sharif)的诗朗诵。

Ms. Haines of For-Site played a critical role in the project, raising $3.5 million from mainly private sources to cover expenses, including $460,000 for Legos. No government money was provided, but she worked closely on research and visitor logistics with the National Park Service, which oversees Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, a nonprofit group.

For-Site的海恩斯女士在这个项目中起到了关键作用，她筹集了350万美元的经费，主要是来自私人，其中46万美元来自乐高公司。没有任何来自政府的资金。但她与负责监管阿尔卡特拉斯的美国国家公园管理局与非盈利组织金门国家公园管理处密切合作，进行研究工作和游客接待工作。

Back in 2011, while Mr. Ai was imprisoned, she was busy organizing an exhibition on the Golden Gate Bridge, tied to its 75th anniversary. It provided a good vantage for looking out at Alcatraz. “I kept thinking this would be a great place to activate with art,” she said.

2011年，艾未未被监禁的时候，海恩斯正忙于在金门大桥组织一个和金门大桥落成75周年有关的展览。从那里可以很好地眺望阿尔卡特拉斯岛。“我一直都在想，这里会是一个进行艺术活动的好地方，”她说。

Visiting Mr. Ai’s studio in Beijing after his release, Ms. Haines planted the seed with him. “I immediately accepted her offer,” he wrote.

艾未未获释后，海恩斯去他的工作室拜访，为他带去了这个想法。“我立即接受了她的建议，”艾未未写道。

On later visits, she brought him at his studio, which she describes as “very calm and well organized,” books and movies exploring the history and legends of Alcatraz, photographs of the prison, and site plans of buildings. In April, she carried in three conspicuous suitcases filled with Legos because his studio was unable to obtain enough for its prototypes. But customs officials never questioned her about them.

海恩斯说，艾未未的工作室“非常安静，井井有条”，后来再去拜访时，她带去了有关阿尔卡特拉斯的历史与传奇的书籍和录像，监狱的照片，还有建筑的平面图。四月，她带去了三个引人瞩目的手提箱，里面装满乐高积木，因为他的工作室无法买到足够的做模型用的积木。但海关官员并未就这些积木对她进行询问。

“In most cases, the authorities will not interfere with my art practice,” Mr. Ai explained. “Normally, interference only happens after the exhibition has already begun.”

艾未未说，“在大多数情况下，官方不会干预我的艺术实践；一般情况下，干扰是在作品开始展览后发生。”

Conveying the physical facts of the prison to him was easy, she said. “What’s harder to communicate is the emotive or sensory content, the feeling you have walking into a room,” she said, describing the oddly calming light of the psychiatric ward, for example. “That’s something I tried more to do with him in person.”

她说，向他传达监狱外观方面的资料并不难，“难的是传达情感或感知的内容，就是走进一个房间的感觉，”比如说，精神病人监护室里那种奇异而宁静的灯光，“这是我努力去亲身向他传递的东西。”

She described her role as facilitator and curator, adding: “It’s Weiwei’s work. It’s his vision through and through.”

她把自己的角色描述为协调者与策展人，并说：“这是未未的作品，从头到尾都是他的设想。”

Richard Koshalek, who was director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden when it organized its 2012 Ai Weiwei survey, said he, too, relied heavily on an outside curator — Mami Kataoka of Tokyo — as liaison because of the artist’s travel constraints.

2012年赫希洪博物馆和雕塑园主办艾未未展期间，理查德·科沙莱克(Richard Koshalek)担任馆长，他说，当时艾未未由于旅行受到限制，同样需要一位外部策展人，即来自东京的片冈美作为联络人。

While Mr. Koshalek has not seen the Alcatraz exhibition, he described the concept as “very important for the city of San Francisco” for “going beyond museums and galleries to take universal issues of human rights directly into a public site, a site with a huge history of despair, penance and rage.”

科沙莱克还没有看过阿尔卡特拉斯的展览，但他说这个概念“对于旧金山来说非常重要”，因为它“超越了博物馆与画廊的范畴，把人权方面普遍存在的问题直接带入一个公共场所，而这个场所又有着失望、悔罪与愤怒的宏大历史。”

The show is not designed to drive more tourist traffic to Alcatraz Island, which the National Park Service says is already near capacity with 1.4 million to 1.5 million visitors a year. (Standard ferry tickets to Alcatraz, $30 for adults, include access to the “@Large” exhibition at no extra charge.) Visitor numbers are capped to protect the site, a seabird habitat as well as a historic landmark.

展览并非为了吸引更多游客来到阿尔卡特拉斯岛，国家公园管理局说，公园每年的游客已接近140万人至150万人（到阿尔卡特拉斯岛的普通轮渡票是成人30美元，看“@Large”展览不另行收费）。为保护海鸟栖居地和历史建筑，设置了参观者人数上限。

Initially, Mr. Ai envisioned visitors walking on the Lego portraits, not unlike the way museumgoers at the Tate Modern in London stepped on his carpet of one million hand-painted porcelain “sunflower seeds” in 2010 (until halted by hazardous levels of dust).

艾未未最初的设想是让参观者在乐高肖像上走过，有点像2010年他在伦敦泰特现代艺术馆的展览，人们可以从地面上铺满的100万颗手绘的瓷质“葵花籽”上走过（后来因为行走扬起的灰尘达到危险程度而被中止）。

This summer, the Alcatraz plans changed: Having 5,000 sightseers daily walking on “Trace” was ruled out, Mr. Ai said, for “technical and safety reasons.”

今年夏天，阿尔卡特拉斯岛改变了计划，每日让5000名参观者从“Trace”上走过的方案被排除，艾未未说，是出于“技术与安全原因”。

Then there is the change he would have made to “Trace” given a slightly different timeline — a reminder that any artwork about political dissidents is bound to be a work in progress.

由于发生时间的微小差异，艾未未本来或许可以对“Trace”做出一个改动——这提醒人们，任何关于政治异见者的艺术作品都注定是不断发展的。

He would have added an image of the Chinese civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who represented Mr. Ai during his detention and was himself arrested in June as part of a broader push in China to punish even moderate reformers.

他本来可以把中国人权律师浦志强的肖像加进去，在艾未未被拘禁期间，浦志强曾是他的律师。今年6月，浦志强亦遭到逮捕，这是中国打击较为温和改革者的广泛行动的一部分。

“I did not put him in ‘Trace,’ because I believed he would be released right away,” Mr. Ai wrote. “Time has proven that I was wrong. He has committed no crime and is still in jail. It is a massive shame that an advocate with such a strong voice has been completely silenced.”

“我没有把他加入‘Trace’，是因为我相信届时他应该已经被释放了，”艾未未写道，“时间证明我是错的。他并没有犯任何罪，现在还被关在监狱。一个这样强大的声音被彻底噤声，这真是巨大的耻辱。”