公共艺术的新与旧:价值规定及其不满

Old and New Public Art:Value Provisions and Discontents

西方公共艺术在过去几十年出现了新旧之分,"新类型公共艺术"是代表性称谓。中国过去二十余年的公共艺术也被认为出现了新面貌,相关论述不一而足。前者的新旧之分涉及两种历史叙事,但它们指向了西方公共艺术,乃至以欧美国家为主体的当代艺术中的价值规定之变:包含艺术、政治与经济等维度的现代主义价值。中国公共艺术的新面貌也呈现在至少两种叙事上:一是基于思想与历史发展的观念叙事,以"公共性"为核心;二是功能取向的空间叙事,包括在城市、乡村与社区中的实践。从中国语境来看,具有社会和政治功能取向的艺术实践并非全新现象,但以"多元性"本身为价值的视角却表明,中国的公共艺术确有一些新面貌。从20世纪的历史来看,这一视角还表明无论中西,公共艺术中的新旧之分都源自不满于"冷战"后的一些价值规定。

In the past few decades,Western public art has been divided into the old and the new,with"New Genre Public Art"being a representative term.Chinese public art of the past twenty years or so has also witnessed an uprising new look,and there have been a number of related discussions.The former involves two historical narratives,but they point to the change of value provisions in western public art and even contemporary art with European and American countries as the main body:modernist values that encompass artistic,political and economic dimensions;while the new look of Chinese public art also asserts itself in at least two narratives:one is a conceptual narrative based on ideological and historical development,with"publicness"as its main theme,and the other is a spatial narrative with a functional orientation,including practices in cities,villages and communities.In the Chinese context,socially and politically oriented artistic practice is not a new phenomenon,but the value of"pluralism"suggests that there are some new aspects of public art in China.From the history of twentieth-century,it also suggests that the distinction between the old and the new public art,both Chinese and Western,stems from its discontent with post-cold-war values.