经济学人下载:隔墙有眼--记录抗议的哀鸣(1)

Protest art

抗议艺术

Walls have eyes 

隔墙有眼

An artist documents clashes between French demonstrators and police 

一位艺术家记录了法国示威者和警察之间的冲突

When Itvan Kebadian spray-painted the words “abolissons la police” above a mural in Paris last year, he was thinking of George Floyd, an African- American whose death under the knee of a white policeman ignited a global movement. But cases closer to home were on his mind, too—of Adama Traore, a young black man who died in custody in France, and Theo Luhaka, who was disabled during a violent arrest, as well as the clashes Mr Kebadian had himself witnessed since he began documenting police brutality in 2016. 

当伊特万·凯巴迪安去年在巴黎的一幅壁画上喷上“让我们废除警察”的字样时，他想到的是非洲裔美国人乔治·弗洛伊德——遭到白人警察跪杀的弗洛伊德曾引发了一场全球运动。但凯巴迪安同时也想到了几起本地的案件，年轻的黑人阿达玛·特拉奥雷在法国被拘留期间死亡、泰奥·卢哈卡在暴力逮捕中致残、以及他自2016年开始记录警察暴行以来曾亲眼目睹的冲突。

By then Mr Kebadian, who once liked to paint insects, had already turned to political themes. He was finishing a mural when thick black smoke began to rise from a nearby street. A police car had been set on fire; passers-by who had stopped to photograph the painter scurried away as officers moved to confront the culprits. 

那时，曾经喜欢画昆虫的凯巴迪安先生已经转向了政治主题。他正在完成一幅壁画时，附近的一条街上开始冒起浓浓的黑烟。一辆警车被纵火焚烧；停下来给画家拍照的路人匆匆离去，警察们正准备与罪犯对质。

On impulse, Mr Kebadian painted the unfolding events in simple black lines, a sketch-like method that has become his signature style. His sharp representations of French society have appeared around the capital—and leapt from street walls to those of galleries. “His technique was far superior to that of other street artists,” says Dominique Fiat, who features Mr Kebadian’s work in her gallery. 

冲动之下，凯巴迪安先生用简单的黑色线条描绘了正在展开的事件，这种速写式的画法已经成为他标志性的风格。从街道墙壁跳跃到画廊的墙壁，他对法国社会的鲜明描绘出现在首都的大街小巷。多米尼克·菲亚特说，“凯巴迪安的技术远远优于其他街头艺术家，”她在自己的画廊展出了凯巴迪安的作品。

“I try to paint reality in reality,” the artist says of his murals. They record clashes between protesters and police, depicting eyes dislodged by rubber bullets, crowds dispersed by clouds of tear gas and telescopic batons breaking jaws. The figures in these tableaux are mostly faceless, composed only of a few lines and shadows. But together they form bleak, eerie scenes of chaos. The results are akin to blurry photos taken hastily with a smartphone; screenshots in paint form, as the artist puts it. 

这位艺术家谈到他的壁画时说，“我试图在现实中描绘现实。”凯巴迪安的壁画记录了抗议者和警察之间的冲突，描绘了被橡皮子弹打掉的眼睛，被催泪瓦斯驱散的人群，以及伸缩警棍打伤下巴的场景。这些绘画作品中的人物大多没有脸，只有一些线条和阴影。但它们合在一起却形成了凄凉、怪诞的混乱图像。效果类似于用智能手机匆匆拍下的模糊照片；正如凯巴迪安所说的绘画方式截屏。

Christophe Genin, a professor of art at Pantheon-Sorbonne University, links Mr Kebadian’s output to the tradition of protest art that evolved in the 20th century— from the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s to the artistic ferment in America in the 1960s and the political placards that appeared across Paris during the student uprising of May 1968. The murals, notes Mr Genin, also resemble Francisco Goya’s lamentations of war, evincing the same sense of despair as “The Third of May 1808”, in which Goya shows Napoleonic soldiers massacring Spaniards during the Peninsular war. He calls Mr Kebadian an “artivist”. 

克里斯托夫·杰宁是巴黎大学的艺术教授，他将凯巴迪安的作品与20世纪演变形成的传统抗议艺术联系起来——从20世纪20年代的俄罗斯先锋派艺术到20世纪60年代美国的艺术热潮，以及1968年5月学生起义期间出现在巴黎各地的政治标语牌。杰宁教授指出，这些壁画也类似于弗朗西斯科·戈雅的战争哀歌，表现出与《1808年5月3日》相同的绝望感，戈雅在这幅画中描绘了拿破仑士兵在半岛战争期间屠杀西班牙人。杰宁教授称凯巴迪安为“艺术主义者”。