杰夫·昆斯与H&M合作推出新奇手袋

AMONG THE IMAGES inscribed on Jeff Koons’s consciousness is a black-and-white photograph of the legendary art dealer Leo Castelli presenting a bronze Jasper Johns flag to President John F. Kennedy. For Mr. Koons, the moment was a watershed. “People from film, music and other areas of the arts have always participated in the popular culture,” he said. “But before that time, the fine arts had been neglected.”

杰夫·昆斯(Jeff Koons)头脑中铭记了各种画面，其中有这样一张黑白照片——传奇艺术商利奥·卡斯泰利(Leo Castelli)把贾斯珀·琼斯(Jasper Johns)的铜制旗帜送给约翰·F·肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy)总统。对昆斯来说，那一刻是个分水岭。“电影、音乐和其他艺术领域的人总是参与到流行文化中来，”他说，“但是在那之前，美术一直被忽视。”

Mr. Koons, now 59, has in fact dedicated much of his three-decade career to making sure that visual arts get their Fair shake. Canny self-promotion and the sensational nature of the work itself have ensured that his kitsch-imbued vacuum cleaners, outsize children’s playthings and copulating couples impress not just art-world insiders but the public at large.

昆斯今年59岁，实际上，在他30年的事业生涯中，有一大半都用来确保视觉艺术得到公正对待。精明的自我推销和作品本身的极佳品质确保他那些充满媚俗之感的吸尘器、超大的儿童玩具、交媾的情侣不仅让艺术界的圈内人，而且让广大公众印象深刻。

Which goes some way toward explaining why Mr. Koons was mingling on a rainy night last week in a crowd that included the actress Olivia Wilde, the model Alek Wek, the blogger Leandra Medine and the British musician Birdy at the opening of H&M’s store at Fifth Avenue and 48th Street.

这在一定程度上能解释为什么上周的一个雨夜，H&M在第五大道和第48街的店铺开业时，昆斯也在人群中交际。来访者中包括女演员奥利维亚·王尔德(Olivia Wilde)、模特艾莉克·慧克(Alek Wek)、博主利安德拉·梅丁(Leandra Medine)和英国音乐人Birdy。

“I want my work to be accessible to people,” said Mr. Koons, dapper in his navy blue H&M suit. Mothers and daughters, college students and young professionals, he predicted, would be among those to pounce on his contribution to the retailer’s inventory: a $49.50 handbag with a six-inch reproduction of his monumental balloon dog. (The $58.4 million original is on view in a survey of the artist’s work at the Whitney Museum of American Art.)

“我想让人们看到我的作品，”昆斯说。他身穿深蓝色的H&M西服，看起来神采奕奕。他预测，母亲和女儿、大学生和年轻的专业人士会扑向他为该公司设计的产品：一款49.50美元的手袋，上面有他的不朽作品“气球狗”的六英寸复制品（原作价值5840万美元，正在惠特尼美国艺术博物馆的一场研究昆斯作品的展览中展出）。

That limited-edition bag, already priced from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars (for artist-signed pieces) on eBay, is but the latest in an outpouring of artist/fashion collaborations to have filtered into the marketplace. In recent memory, these have included such high-profile partnerships as Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince, each with Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton; Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby at Dior; and Riccardo Tisci and Marina Abramovic at Givenchy.

那款限量版手袋在eBay上的价格已经由几百美元飙升至几千美元（艺术家签名款）。它只是涌入市场的艺术家与时装公司的合作产品中的最新一个。最近，村上隆和理查德·普林斯(Richard Prince)分别与马克·雅可布(Marc Jacobs)为LV高调合作；拉夫·西蒙斯(Raf Simons)和斯特林·鲁比(Sterling Ruby)一起为迪奥(Dior)做设计；里卡多·提西(Riccardo Tisci)和玛丽娜·阿布拉莫维奇(Marina Abramovic)一起为纪梵希(Givenchy)做设计。

But in joining hands with H&M, Mr. Koons has lent this time-tested marketing gambit a democratic twist. No longer the exclusive province of the luxury arena, such artist/retail partnerships have now trickled downward, with the aim, it seems, of lending fast fashion a whiff of class and cultural clout.

但是昆斯与H&M的合作给这个久经考验的营销策略带来了民主变革。艺术家与零售商的合作不再是奢侈品牌的独享领域，现在它开始向下发展，似乎是想给快速时尚带来一点经典和文化的感觉。

“These high street brands don’t really have a face we associate with the artistic director of a luxury brand like Vuitton,” said Mitchell Oakley Smith, the author, with Alison Kubler, of “Art/Fashion in the 21st Century.” “Perhaps this is a way of imbuing the mass brand with a personality and point of difference.”

“不像LV这样的奢侈品牌，我们并不知道这些高街品牌的设计总监是谁，”《21世纪的艺术与时尚》(Art/Fashion in the 21st Century)的作者之一米切尔·奥克利·史密斯（Mitchell Oakley Smith，另一位作者是艾莉森·库布勒[Alison Kubler]）说，“这也许是给大众品牌注入个性和特色的一个方法。”

Earlier this year, whether to lift sales or consumer awareness, Uniqlo joined with the Museum of Modern Art to create a collection of T-shirts embellished with images of works by Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Jackson Pollock, among others; Gap teamed with the Frieze Art Fair to sell tees printed with images by Richard Phillips, Alex Katz and Yoko Ono; and Junk Food, a Los Angeles apparel maker, licensed work by Mr. Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose iconic crown tag was stamped on black T-shirts sold at Urban Outfitters.

今年早些时候，不管是为了促进销售还是提高公司的知名度，优衣库(Uniqlo)和现代艺术博物馆(Museum of Modern Art)合作生产了一系列T恤，上面装饰着安迪·沃霍尔(Andy Warhol)、基思·哈林(Keith Haring)和杰克逊·波洛克(Jackson Pollock)等人的作品图像；Gap与弗里兹艺术博览会(Frieze Art Fair)合作销售印有理查德·菲利普斯(Richard Phillips)、亚历克斯·卡茨(Alex Katz)和小野洋子的作品图像的T恤；洛杉矶服装制造商垃圾食品(Junk Food)得到了哈林和让-米切尔·巴斯奎特(Jean-Michel Basquiat)的作品许可，巴斯奎特的标志性皇冠标签被印在黑色T恤上，在城市装备店(Urban Outfitters)销售。

“It was inevitable that the mass market would pick up on the idea of artist collaborations,” Ms. Kubler said, “but it is an interesting test of their relevance.” Luxury alliances like Vuitton and Mr. Murakami lift the stature of both artist and brand, “but in the mass market,” she added, “the message can be harder to get across.”

“大众市场肯定会慢慢熟悉这种与艺术家合作的做法，”库布勒说，“但它是个关于相关性的有趣测试。” 她补充说，像LV和村上隆这样的合作既能提升艺术家的知名度，也能提高奢侈品牌的地位，“但是在大众市场，这样的讯息传达起来更难”。

If such ventures have little immediate impact on a merchant’s bottom line, they can profit the artist immeasurably. A handful of years ago, Jeffrey Deitch, Mr. Koons’s former dealer and a friend, anticipated this phenomenon, telling The New York Times that such partnerships are “just one of the avenues available to the artist who wants to get his message to the public.”

虽然这样的合作可能不会很快帮助服装公司增加利润，但是它们能给艺术家带来不可估量的益处。几年前，昆斯的朋友和前任代理人杰弗里·戴奇(Jeffrey Deitch)预测了这种现象，他对《纽约时报》说这样的合作“给那些想把自己的讯息传递给公众的艺术家提供了一条途径”。

The assumption, of course, is that the public knows the name. Or if, as in the case of Mr. Koons, “they do not know the man, they know the iconic things he has done,” said Daniel Kulle, the president for North American operations at H&M. “People are more well informed than they used to be.”

当然，前提是公众知道这位艺术家。或者，如H&M的北美运营总监丹尼尔·库勒(Daniel Kulle)所说，昆斯的情况是，“他们不知道这个人，但他们知道他设计的标志性作品”，“人们对他的了解比以前更多了”。

Still, to an art-enamored public, the matter may be moot. “Even if an artist is unknown,” Mr. Smith said, “in that commercial context, who he is and what he does matters less than just that he is an artist.”

不过，对倾慕艺术的公众来说，这个问题也许无关紧要。“即使这位艺术家默默无闻，”史密斯说，“在那个商业环境中，他是谁、他做什么不重要，重要的是他是艺术家。”