自拍照也是艺术品？

When you’re out with a friend and take a photo of yourselves, do you know that you are also creating a work of art? Or that you are competing with Vincent van Gogh himself? Probably not. Your idea might be to show off your selfie on WeChat or QQ, but you probably don’t think of the internet as a gallery or of yourself as an artist.

当你和朋友们一起出门玩、拍自拍的时候，你知道其实自己也正在创作一件艺术作品吗?或者你知道自己正在和文森特·梵高竞争吗?或许你并不知道。你可能只是想在微信或QQ上晒照，但或许你并没想过互联网也可以成为一座美术馆，或者你自己就是个艺术家。

But the chief executive of London’s Saatchi Gallery, Nigel Hurst, thinks that the casual pictures we take of ourselves have something in common with self-portraits by the great masters. In support of the idea, the Saatchi Gallery has a new exhibition called From Selfie to Self-Expression.

但伦敦萨奇画廊的负责人奈杰尔·赫斯特认为，我们随意的自拍照和大师们的自画像有共同之处。为了支持这一想法，萨奇画廊还举办了一个名为“从自拍到自我表达”新展览。

It features well-known self-portraits from artists including Dutch painters Van Gogh (1853-1890) and Rembrandt (1606–1669). It also has selfies on show that have “quickly become icons of the digital era.” These include one taken by US celebrity Kim Kardashian and another of former US President Barack Obama with former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, according to the BBC.

该展览展出了荷兰画家梵高以及伦勃朗的自画像。展览中也有“迅速成为数字时代偶像”的自拍照。据BBC报道，这些自拍照中包括了美国名人金·卡戴珊的自拍照，以及美国前总统贝拉克·奥巴马和英国前首相大卫·卡梅伦的一张自拍。

The gallery is even encouraging visitors to add their own selfies to the show.

该画廊甚至还鼓励参观者们在展览上展出自己的自拍。

Hurst is perhaps not being 100 percent serious. He isn’t claiming that a snap (快照) you take of yourself in your favorite restaurant can be compared with a self-image painted by Van Gogh. But he does make a serious point. Once upon a time, it was only artists who could make images of themselves. They were the only ones, as Hurst told The Guardian, who “had the skills, materials and tools to create self-portraits.” Today, however, we “all have that [ability] through our smartphones.”

赫斯特或许并非完全是认真的。他并不是说你在最爱的餐厅里拍的一张自拍能和梵高所画的自画像能相提并论。但他的确表达了很关键的一点。过去只有画家才能画自画像。他们是唯一的一群人，正如赫斯特在接受《卫报》采访时所说的那样，他们“拥有技能、材料以及工具来创作自画像。”然而如今，我们“通过智能手机，令所有人都拥有了那种(能力)。”

The popularity of the selfie rocketed after smartphones started to become widely used. In 2013, Oxford Dictionaries named “selfie” as its word of the year. As Pamela Rutledge, a professor at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, told Vogue magazine: “the cult of (对......的狂热) the selfie celebrates regular people”.

从智能手机被广泛使用开始，自拍的欢迎程度便急速上升。2013年，《牛津词典》将“自拍”一词选为年度词汇。正如麻省职业心理学学院教授帕梅拉·拉特里奇在接受《Vogue》杂志采访时所说的那样：“对自拍的狂热是普通人的一种庆祝方式。”

And Hurst described the smartphone selfie as an example of “a shift in society using technology as a means of self-expression”. He told The Guardian: “The selfie generation is becoming the self-expression generation as each of us seeks to explore and share our inner creativity through the one artistic tool to which we all have access – the smartphone.”

赫斯特形容智能手机上的自拍是“社会的一种转变，利用科技作为自我表达的方式之一”。他在接受《卫报》采访时表示：“自拍一代正在成为自我表达的一代，通过大家都有的智能手机这一艺术工具，我们每个人都在试图探索和分享自己内在的创造力。”