经济学人20:雕刻大师路易丝·布尔乔亚

 　　Obituary;Louise Bourgeois¹;

　　讣告;路易丝·布尔乔亚;

　　Louise Bourgeois, sculptor², died on May 31st, aged³ 98;

　　雕刻大师路易丝·布尔乔亚卒于5月31日享年98岁;

　　When she was photographed by the great Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois decided⁴ she needed a prop⁵. She didn't like to have her picture taken. At 70, she might have chosen a handbag, a book, a rose. Instead she took a two-foot-long, fully⁶ erect⁷, fully veined and muscled phallus, which she had made of latex and plaster. She called it “Fillette”, and cradled it in her arms like a doll. Indeed, she said, it was not a phallus at all, but “Little Louise”. And with her sharp, puckish look, she dared anyone to contradict her.

　　著名的摄影家罗伯特·梅普勒索普给路易丝拍照时，她决定需要一个道具。她不喜欢被拍摄。70岁的她也许会选择一个手提包，一本书，或者一朵玫瑰。而她却选了一个两英尺长，完全直立的，充满纹理和肌肉感的阳具，这是她自己用乳胶和石膏做成的。她称之为“菲勒提”并让它像一个布娃娃般安睡在自己怀中。诚如她所说，它根本不是一个阳具，而是“小路易丝”。她犀利而恶作剧般的神色，不惧怕任何反对者。

　　Her sculptures were often not what they appeared to be. A beautiful white marble piece called “Cumul I” (1969) which seemed to show a cluster of eyes, or yet more phalluses, emerging from sheets, was about huddling⁸ together, she said; or just a collection of clouds. Her “Lair”, a big rubber pear-shape of 1986, was a hiding place, or a prison, or a peaceful orb⁹, or a trap in which the viewer might find himself stuck. Her giant steel spiders, which teetered across the world from New York to St Petersburg to London's Tate Modern, were both terrorising and protective. London's, 35 feet tall, was called “Maman”.

　　她的雕刻作品常常不是表面上呈现出的那样。一件叫做“累积1号”（1969）的美丽白色大理石作品看上去像是展现一簇目光，或者更多的阳具，从一堆床单中涌出来，混杂在一起，她说；或者就是一团云彩。1986年作品“巢穴”，一个巨大的橡皮梨型，是一个避难所，或是一个艰巨，还是一个和平的天体，抑或是观者发现自己被卡在其中的一个陷阱。她的巨型钢制蜘蛛，从纽约到圣彼得堡到伦敦的泰特现代美术馆，在世界各地摇摇欲坠，既令人毛骨悚然又给人保护之意。伦敦那个35英尺高的，被称为“小妈妈”。

　　With the art world in awe¹⁰ of her from 1982 onwards, when a New York retrospective drew her, very late in life, to popular attention, she got tired of explaining this or that protuberance in her landscapes of mounds¹¹ and udders. Freud came in handy; she quoted him often. But claims of eroticism puzzled her. The shapes just suggested themselves, so she followed. They were all about pain, fear, demons¹² and her past.

　　1982年开始，艺术界对她生起敬畏，在她艺术生涯的晚期，纽约的一次艺术回顾展引起了公众对她的注意，她厌烦了解释小山和乳房风景中这个或者那个隆起。佛洛伊德用起来倒是顺手；她常常援引他。但是性爱主义倾向的主张却让她迷惑。那些形状只是代表他们本省，她仅仅是追随。那些都是关于痛苦，恐惧，鬼神合她的过去。

　　That, too, seemed a contradictory¹³ place. A comfortable middle-class upbringing south of Paris was presented as something close to child abuse; yet her first sculpture show, in New York in 1949 after she had married and left, was of tall, sad balsa-wood figures that represented “homesickness”. Her mother was not only a spider—a reference to her career as a weaver¹⁴ and repairer of tapestries¹⁵—but a “She-Fox”, a huge-breasted creature of enduring stone squatting¹⁶ on haunches under which Louise tried to burrow¹⁷, like a worm. Her father, handsome and philandering¹⁸, was someone she longed to please; yet in 1974 an enormous tableau¹⁹ in plaster and latex, “The Destruction of the Father”, showed huge mammary forms round a table in a red-glowing cave on which the hated paterfamilias was torn up and devoured²⁰.

　　这看起来也是一个矛盾的地方。巴黎南部舒适的中产阶级出身教养所表现出的则像是虐童；而1949年她结婚又离开纽约，在纽约的第一场雕塑展则是一个高高的，轻木做成的雕像，代表了“乡愁”。她的母亲不只是一个蜘蛛——对于她职业像一个织锦画的编制者和修补者——而是一个“母狐狸”，一个大胸的生物，在路易斯试图像个蠕虫般大洞的桥墩上不断地垒石头。他的父亲，帅气而风流，是她试图取悦的对象；而在1974年名为“父亲的毁灭”的巨型橡胶和石膏人物场景作品，展示了一个泛着红色光芒的山洞中，很多乳房形状围绕在一张桌子旁边，可恶的一家之主被撕成碎片并被生吞活剥。

　　Even the gentle art of tapestry²¹ itself was transmuted²² into violence. In her works the spiralling spindle represented the beginning of chaos²³. The needle threatened the desecration²⁴ of the stone, the penetration²⁵ to the core. The twisting of the wet tapestries, lugged²⁶ from the tannin-filled river, made Ms Bourgeois dream of twisting the neck of the plump English girl who had been her father's mistress. Her childhood task in the workshop was to draw cartoons of the missing feet of figures; her mother, with delicate scissors, would snip²⁷ out the genitals from tapestries destined²⁸ for the puritan American market. Hence the liking²⁹ for scattered³⁰ body parts in latex, wax, bronze or marble, and the odd assemblages, such as “Nature Study” of 1984, where figures lacked heads but had multiple breasts, and phalluses, and claws.

　　即便是优雅的织锦画艺术本身也被变形为暴力。在她的作品里，旋转的纺锤代表了混乱的开始。针威胁着石头的亵渎，威胁着核心的穿透力。拧那些从充满丹宁的河里捞出来的湿漉漉的织锦，让路易丝梦见了拧断父亲那个丰满的英国情妇的脖子；她小时候在车间里的工作是为雕塑缺掉的脚画草图；她的妈妈，用精致的剪刀，从那些准备销往美国清教徒市场的织锦上剪掉生殖器。因此喜欢用乳胶、蜡、铜或者大理石，以及奇怪的组合来拓展身体部位，比如1984年的“自然研究”，作品缺少头，但有很多乳房、阳具以及爪子。

　　From the volcano

　　来自火山

　　She had claws herself. For years they went undetected. She attended the New York art shows on the arm of her art-historian husband, Robert Goldwater, like any smiling post-war wife, and brought up three sons placidly³¹ on huge bottles of milk, while thinking of the delicious fear induced by milk seeping³² from the mother, water from the earth, saliva³³ from the snail³⁴, lava³⁵ from the volcano. Her own “volcanic subconscious” was channelled into work done in wood, because it was quiet, or cobbled from objets trouvés, because she did not want to spend her husband's money, and then hidden away, as a squirrel hid nuts, since art was a man's world.

　　她自己也有爪子。只是多年来并未发现。她挽着艺术史学家丈夫罗格特·戈尔德瓦特参加了纽约艺术展，和任何微笑着的战后妻子一样，并平静地用大奶瓶养育了三个儿子，同时她还想到了母亲乳汁引发的美味的恐惧，以及大地的水，蜗牛的唾液，火山的熔岩。她自己的木制作品“火山潜意识”水到渠成地完成了，因为它很安静，或者由objets trouvés草草拼成，因为她不想花丈夫的前，所以就把它藏了起来，就像是雄鼠藏起坚果，因为艺术是男人的世界。

　　She believed this even in her last three celebrated³⁶ decades. She was not a feminist³⁷ particularly, but had seen enough of the power-games of the Duchamps and Bretons, the Pollocks and the Warhols. Some of her sculptures were of women trying to turn themselves into weapons. They remained fragile. She was not. Faced with a solid block—even the lovely curve of white marble that went to make “The Sail” in 1988—she needed to hack³⁸ it to pieces, then rebuild it as she wanted. She raged to understand the stone. The more the material resisted, the more she fought it.

　　即便是在她最后声名卓著的三十年里，她依然坚信这一点。她不是女权主义者，但是也看够了杜尚们和布列塔尼们，波洛克家族和沃霍尔的权利游戏。她的一些作品是女人试图武装自己。她们依然是脆弱的。她不是。面对坚硬的石块——即便是用来完成1988年“航行”的美丽白色大理石曲线——她需要把它劈成碎片，然后重建成她想要的样子。她以一种激进的方式来理解石材。材质越是抗拒，她就越是与其斗争。

　　It was all about self-esteem, she said. She gained confidence by destroying the past. And if the finished work caused disquiet³⁹, as it usually did, that pleased her. She had connected with other people and attracted their regard, maybe their love. Isolation⁴⁰ always haunted her. It lay behind the “Cells”, her series of installations in the early 1990s in which small, bleak⁴¹ rooms were viewed through half-opened doors or dirty windows. One contained a metal-framed bed in which someone was hiding. Another showed, beside a tray of perfume bottles, two stone hands twisted in pain.

　　她说，这完全是出于自尊。她通过捣毁过去来获得自信。如果完成一件作品导致了不安，正如通常那样，这才会让她高兴。她与其他人建立了连接并赢得了他们的敬重，也许是他们的爱。隔绝感也经常萦绕于她。它隐含在她的系列装置艺术卓品“细胞”之中，在该1990年代作品中，透过半开的门或肮脏的小窗户，可以看到一些小而荒凉的房间。其中一个里面有一个铁架床，里面藏着一个人。另一个展现的是在一个香水瓶的托盘旁边，两只石雕手痛苦地纠缠在一起。

　　Almost everything, she confessed, could be seen as a self-portrait. This was her, arching her body in a bronze hoop⁴²; her as a splayed, bug-eyed rabbit; her as a torso with orifices, like leaves, down her spine⁴³. And, yes, her being carried, tenderly as a doll, by an elderly woman in a monkey-fur coat with an impish, vicious smile.

　　她承认，几乎所有的一切都可以看作是自画像。弓身于一个铜箍里的是她，八字脚暴眼的兔子也是她，布满孔洞的躯干，像一片叶子，卷起她的脊柱。是的，她被像个布娃娃般温柔地抱在一个老妇人怀中，那人穿着猴子皮大衣，恶作剧的坏笑。

1 bourgeois   

adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子

参考例句：

• He's accusing them of having a bourgeois and limited vision.他指责他们像中产阶级一样目光狭隘。
• The French Revolution was inspired by the bourgeois.法国革命受到中产阶级的鼓励。

2 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

3 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 prop   

vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山

参考例句：

• A worker put a prop against the wall of the tunnel to keep it from falling.一名工人用东西支撑住隧道壁好使它不会倒塌。
• The government does not intend to prop up declining industries.政府无意扶持不景气的企业。

6 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

7 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

8 huddling   

n. 杂乱一团, 混乱, 拥挤 v. 推挤, 乱堆, 草率了事

参考例句：

• Twenty or thirty monkeys are huddling along the thick branch. 三十只猴子挤在粗大的树枝上。
• The defenders are huddling down for cover. 捍卫者为了掩护缩成一团。

9 orb   

n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形

参考例句：

• The blue heaven,holding its one golden orb,poured down a crystal wash of warm light.蓝蓝的天空托着金色的太阳，洒下一片水晶般明亮温暖的光辉。
• It is an emanation from the distant orb of immortal light.它是从远处那个发出不灭之光的天体上放射出来的。

10 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

11 mounds   

土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆

参考例句：

• We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
• Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊，这就是同墓，”——我想他要说的一定是公墓，“看到那些土墩了吗？

12 demons   

n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念

参考例句：

• demons torturing the sinners in Hell 地狱里折磨罪人的魔鬼
• He is plagued by demons which go back to his traumatic childhood. 他为心魔所困扰，那可追溯至他饱受创伤的童年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

14 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

15 tapestries   

n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The wall of the banqueting hall were hung with tapestries. 宴会厅的墙上挂有壁毯。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rooms were hung with tapestries. 房间里都装饰着挂毯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 squatting   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road. 他们落得在牛津路偷住空房的境地。
• They've been squatting in an apartment for the past two years. 他们过去两年来一直擅自占用一套公寓。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 burrow   

vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞

参考例句：

• Earthworms burrow deep into the subsoil.蚯蚓深深地钻进底土。
• The dog had chased a rabbit into its burrow.狗把兔子追进了洞穴。

18 philandering   

v.调戏，玩弄女性( philander的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• And all because of a bit of minor philandering. 何况这只是区区一桩风流韵事所引起的呢。 来自飘（部分）
• My after-school job means tailing philandering spouses or investigating false injury claims. 我的课余工作差不多就是跟踪外遇者或调查诈骗保险金。 来自电影对白

19 tableau   

n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面）

参考例句：

• The movie was a tableau of a soldier's life.这部电影的画面生动地描绘了军人的生活。
• History is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.历史不过是由罪恶和灾难构成的静止舞台造型罢了。

20 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

21 tapestry   

n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面

参考例句：

• How about this artistic tapestry and this cloisonne vase?这件艺术挂毯和这个景泰蓝花瓶怎么样？
• The wall of my living room was hung with a tapestry.我的起居室的墙上挂着一块壁毯。

22 transmuted   

v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• It was once thought that lead could be transmuted into gold. 有人曾经认为铅可以变成黄金。
• They transmuted the raw materials into finished products. 他们把原料变为成品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

23 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

24 desecration   

n. 亵渎神圣, 污辱

参考例句：

• Desecration, and so forth, and lectured you on dignity and sanctity. 比如亵渎神圣等。想用尊严和神圣不可侵犯之类的话来打动你们。
• Desecration: will no longer break stealth. 亵渎：不再消除潜行。

25 penetration   

n.穿透，穿人，渗透

参考例句：

• He is a man of penetration.他是一个富有洞察力的人。
• Our aim is to achieve greater market penetration.我们的目标是进一步打入市场。

26 lugged   

vt.用力拖拉（lug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• She lugged the heavy case up the stairs. 她把那只沉甸甸的箱子拖上了楼梯。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They used to yell that at football when you lugged the ball. 踢足球的时候，逢着你抢到球，人们总是对你这样嚷嚷。 来自辞典例句

27 snip   

n.便宜货，廉价货，剪，剪断

参考例句：

• He has now begun to snip away at the piece of paper.现在他已经开始剪这张纸。
• The beautifully made briefcase is a snip at £74.25.这个做工精美的公文包售价才74.25英镑，可谓物美价廉。

28 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

29 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

30 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

31 placidly   

adv.平稳地，平静地

参考例句：

• Hurstwood stood placidly by, while the car rolled back into the yard. 当车子开回场地时，赫斯渥沉着地站在一边。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• The water chestnut floated placidly there, where it would grow. 那棵菱角就又安安稳稳浮在水面上生长去了。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

32 seeping   

v.（液体）渗( seep的现在分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出

参考例句：

• Water had been slowly seeping away from the pond. 池塘里的水一直在慢慢渗漏。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Chueh-hui could feel the cold seeping into his bones. 觉慧开始觉得寒气透过衣服浸到身上来了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

33 saliva   

n.唾液，口水

参考例句：

• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。
• Saliva dribbled from the baby's mouth.唾液从婴儿的嘴里流了出来。

34 snail   

n.蜗牛

参考例句：

• Snail is a small plant-eating creature with a soft body.蜗牛是一种软体草食动物。
• Time moved at a snail's pace before the holidays.放假前的时间过得很慢。

35 lava   

n.熔岩，火山岩

参考例句：

• The lava flowed down the sides of the volcano.熔岩沿火山坡面涌流而下。
• His anger spilled out like lava.他的愤怒像火山爆发似的迸发出来。

36 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

37 feminist   

adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的

参考例句：

• She followed the feminist movement.她支持女权运动。
• From then on,feminist studies on literature boomed.从那时起，男女平等受教育的现象开始迅速兴起。

38 hack   

n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳

参考例句：

• He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
• Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。

39 disquiet   

n.担心，焦虑

参考例句：

• The disquiet will boil over in the long run.这种不安情绪终有一天会爆发的。
• Her disquiet made us uneasy too.她的忧虑使我们也很不安。

40 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

41 bleak   

adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的

参考例句：

• They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
• The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。

42 hoop   

n.（篮球）篮圈，篮

参考例句：

• The child was rolling a hoop.那个孩子在滚铁环。
• The wooden tub is fitted with the iron hoop.木盆都用铁箍箍紧。

43 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。