博物馆的慢体验

From Show and Look to Show and Teach

博物馆的慢体验

THERE have been many strange sightings outside the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Marcel Breuer building over the years: a giant bird’s nest precariously perched on the cantilevered entrance; a neon sign that spelled out “Negro Sunshine”; and a giant replica of a toy fire truck parked at the curb for nearly three months, to name a few. So it is hardly surprising that recent passers-by don’t seem at all curious at the sight of tall black shipping containers rising from the sculpture court.

多年来，在马塞尔·布劳耶(Marcel Breuer)为惠特尼美国艺术博物馆设计的大楼外，总是能看到些奇怪的东西，任举几例：入口顶盖上摇摇欲坠的巨大鸟巢;霓虹灯拼出的“黑鬼阳光”几个大字;在路边停了将近三个月的巨型玩具消防车。因此也就不难理解，为什么路人们看到近来在雕塑园里拔地而起的黑色大集装箱时，并没有表现出什么好奇心。

It is not, as most people assume, some wacky installation for the 2012 Biennial, which opened on March 1. It is perhaps the first-ever pop-up education center at a New York museum.

很多人猜想它是为2012年双年展准备的某种荒唐的装置，其实不是。它可能是有史以来纽约博物馆建起的第一座简易教育中心。

“We really do put education front and center,” said Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s director.

“教育的确是我们最看重的一部分。”惠特尼总监亚当·D. 魏恩伯格(Adam D. Weinberg)说。

Known as the Whitney Studio, it will stay there until the museum moves to its new home in Manhattan’s meatpacking district in 2015. The design is singular — a 600-square-foot space composed of six black-painted shipping containers that form a 17-foot-tall studio space and storage mezzanine — and the idea is perhaps the most tangible example of what museum education is about these days.

这个名为惠特尼工作室的建筑将一直待在这里，直到2015年博物馆搬迁至位于曼哈顿肉库区新馆址。建筑的设计很奇特——这是一个600平方英尺(约合55.7平方米)的空间，用六只漆成黑色的集装箱组成了一个17英尺(约合5.1米)高的工作室和夹层储藏室——这个创意可能是当今博物馆教育宗旨的一次最鲜明的展示。

教育必不可少

“The big movement right now is experiential learning,” said Kathryn Potts, an associate director who is chairwoman of the Whitney’s education department. “And what museums offer is a unique experience you can’t get anywhere else: of being in galleries, meeting artists and understanding their world.”

“目前最重要的一个趋势就是体验式学习，”惠特尼教育部主任、副总监凯瑟琳·珀茨(Kathryn Potts)说：“博物馆提供的是一种在别处绝对找不到的独特体验：在画廊里，和艺术家会面，去领会他们的世界。”

At the Whitney, the pop-up center is an inventive solution to a space problem. When the museum sold its neighboring brownstones last year, with them went the space where some education programs were held.

简易中心对空间有限的惠特尼来说是一个创造性的解决方案。去年博物馆卖掉了附近那座褐砂石大楼，同时也就没有了做教育项目的空间。

Desperate for a solution, the museum called upon LOT-EK, the Manhattan architects known for their innovative use of recycled materials, to create a place where people of all ages could participate in classes, art-making workshops, studio demonstrations and other educational endeavors. The design calls for a diagonal, continuous band of glass running along two sides and across the roof, allowing visitors to watch what’s going on inside.

万般无奈之下，博物馆找到以活用回收材料著称的曼哈顿建筑师事务所LOT-EK，设计出一个让男女老少都可以参与课堂、艺术创作讲习班、工作室演示等等教育活动的空间。这个设计需要安装斜线形的、连续性的条形玻璃窗，贴着相邻的两个表面一直延伸到屋顶，这样在外面的观众就可以看到里面在做什么。

“So often education is a behind-the-scene activity either relegated to a wing by itself or in the basement,” Mr. Weinberg said. “But for us education is part and parcel of what we do.”

“教育总是被当作一种幕后活动，丢在附楼或者某个地下室里自生自灭，”魏恩伯格先生说：“但我们把教育当作必不可少的一部分。”

The space is just the kind of thing the public wants these days. “Audiences today are more interested in participatory events, not just being talked to,” Ms. Potts said.

当下公众需要的正是这样的空间。“现在的观众对参与性的活动更感兴趣，不愿意只是被动地听。”珀茨说。

On a recent rainy Friday evening, a few blocks north at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a group was gathered for “Drop-in Drawing.” The program meets every two weeks in a different part of the museum, and this session convened in the new painting galleries of the American Wing.

前不久一个阴雨连连的周五晚上，在距离大都会艺术博物馆以北几个街区的地方，聚集着参加“来画画”(Drop-in Drawing)活动的人群。这个活动每两周会在博物馆举行一次，地点各不相同，这一期放在了大都会“美利坚之翼”的新画廊里。

Perched on folding seats, armed with clipboards, paper and colored pencils (all provided free by the Met), a group ranging in age from roughly 6 to upward of 65 listened with rapt attention as Pamela Lawton, a New York artist, explained how artists traditionally compose a canvas: with a foreground, a middle ground and a background.

参与者的年龄大约在6岁到65岁之间，他们坐在折凳上，拿着画板、纸和彩色铅笔(全都由大都会免费提供)，全神贯注地听着纽约艺术家帕梅拉·劳顿(Pamela Lawton)讲解画家在画布上的传统构图方式：有一层前景，一层中景，还有背景。

The group then started sketching, inspired by examples of the Hudson River School painters surrounding them, including works by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Frederic Edwin Church and George Inness. After 20 minutes or so, the group moved to the nearby American Impressionist galleries, where Deborah Lutz, another artist, continued teaching.

接下来大家开始画素描，四周展示着的哈德逊派画家作品， 其中包括贾斯培尔·弗朗西斯·克罗普西(Jasper Francis Cropsey)、弗雷德里克·埃德温·丘奇(Frederic Edwin Church)和乔治·英尼斯(George Inness)，这对他们是一种启发。过了大约20分钟，人群开始转向附近的美国印象派画廊，另一位艺术家——黛博拉·拉茨(Deborah Lutz)——将在那里继续讲解。

“Programs like this are amazing,” said Kristine Mustillo, the principal of Public School 97 in Brooklyn, as she watched her daughters, Jillian, 8, and Emily, 9, create landscapes inspired by the 19th-century artist William Pickwell’s painting “Banks of the Loing.”

“像这样的学习班太有意思了，”布鲁克林第97公立学校校长克丽丝汀·马斯提洛(Kristine Mustillo)说，她的两个女儿，八岁的吉莉安和九岁的艾米丽，此刻正在仿照19世纪画家威廉·匹克维尔(William Pickwell)的《卢万河岸》(Banks of the Loing)的画风创作风景画。

“Schools have cut back a lot, so you don’t get much arts education these days,” she said. “We’ve been to nearly every museum in the city.” (Jillian said her favorite so far was the New Museum because she loved the slide, by the artist Carsten Höller. Emily is a fan of the Museum of Modern Art, which has the best selection of works by Warhol, her favorite artist.)

“学校的预算大幅缩减，所以如今得不到多少艺术教育了，”她说：“我们几乎走遍了全城所有的博物馆。”(吉莉安说她目前为止最喜欢的是新博物馆，因为有艺术家卡斯滕·霍勒[Carsten Höller]做的幻灯片。艾米丽是现代艺术博物馆的拥趸，因为那里收藏了最好的安迪·沃霍尔[Andy Warhol]——她最喜欢的艺术家。)

“The point is to use drawing to look more closely at art,” said Peggy Fogelman, the Met’s chairwoman of education. “Our Drop-In Drawing program fosters a kind of social learning environment.”

“关键在于通过画画来近距离观察艺术品，”大都会教育部主任佩琪·福格尔曼(Peggy Fogelman)说：“我们的‘来画画’学习班就是要培养一种协作学习的环境。”

In the world of museum educators, learning today is all about do-it-yourself, sometimes called free-choice learning. “More and more people are directing their own learning experience,” Ms. Fogelman explained. “And part of that equation involves artists. They help connect the past with the present.”

在今天的博物馆教育领域中，一切都围绕着自己动手来展开，有人称之为自由选择式学习。“越来越多的人开始注重自己的学习体验，”福格尔曼女士说：“这其中也包括艺术家的参与。由他们把过去和现在联系起来。”

虚拟世界也要动手

Now that online courses have been available for teachers and the public on museum Web sites for years, a concerted effort is being made to balance what the Internet has to offer with what museums can do on-site.

博物馆官网上为教室和公众准备的在线课程已经开展了几年，在多方协同之下，互联网和博物馆的现场教学之间正在形成一种平衡。

“It is no longer either/or, but and/and,” said Ms. Fogelman, who explained that recent visitor surveys showed that audiences wanted to learn where the action was — at the museum itself. “Technology is a part of our everyday life, and museums are getting smarter about using it. But it’s our collections and exhibitions that make us unique. At an encyclopedic museum like the Met, that is what defines us.”

“现在已经不再是非此即彼，而是两者兼得了。”福格尔曼女士说。博物馆通过对近期的观众进行调查发现，人们希望在实体的现场学习——也就是在博物馆里。“科技是我们日常生活的一部分，博物馆正在摸索使用它的技巧。但是我们真正得天独厚的是收藏和展览。对于大都会这样的百科全书式博物馆，这些才是我们的根本。”

In Washington, at the National Gallery of Art, Lynn Pearson Russell, the director of education, said she saw “a bigger return to teaching from original objects and less of a high-tech approach.” In this high-speed information age, one of the museum’s newer programs is geared toward just the opposite kind of experience — slowing down.

在华盛顿的国立艺术画廊，教育总监琳恩·皮尔森·拉塞尔(Lynn Pearson Russell)说她发现“用原始的实物来教学比使用高科技手段的效果更好。”在这个极速信息时代，博物馆却选择追求截然相反的体验——慢慢来。

“Families are invited to spend 60 to 75 minutes investigating one work of art,” Ms. Russell said. “It’s a less-is-more approach. In this increasingly fast-paced world, it’s an alternative way to spend time together, learning to look and revealing the complexity of art in a group conversation.” The program also includes a component of drawing. “You’re not dependent on technology, but you’re doing it yourself,” she said.

“我们邀请家庭来对某一件艺术品进行60到75分钟的研究，”拉塞尔女士说：“这是一种‘少即是多’的思路。在一个越来越快节奏的世界里，一家人可以选择换一种方式来共度时光，通过群体交谈来欣赏和发现艺术的复杂性。”这个项目同样也包含绘画部分。“你不是在依赖科技，而是自己动手。”她说。

Slowing down has also become a priority at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. “The more virtual we’ve become, the more we need to touch,” said Sarah Schultz. As the Walker’s director of education, she also took on the title of curator of public practice, a signal that audience participation and civic engagement were critical. “Visitors are realizing how luxurious and important it is just to be in the present,” she said.

明尼阿波利斯的沃克艺术中心也把放慢步伐当做头等大事。“我们的生活越是虚拟化，就越是需要触碰。”莎拉·舒尔茨(Sarah Schultz)说。作为沃克的教育总监，她还身兼公共实践策划人之职，这表明观众参与和融入城市生活是至关重要的。“观众正在意识到，把握当下是多么奢侈而重要的事。”她说。

Two summers ago, the Walker took a fallow field adjacent to the museum and turned it into what Ms. Schultz described as a “cultural commons.” “It’s meant to be a mash-up of creative life,” she explained.

两年前的夏天，沃克中心把博物馆隔壁的一块空地变成了舒尔茨女士所说的“文化公地”。“这里应该是一个创造生活的大杂烩。”她说。

Among its offerings is “The Drawing Club,” a collaborative artwork that someone might start — a simple drawing on an 11-by-13 inch sheet of paper — that another person will then pick up and add to. The person who thinks it is complete starts a new drawing. “We invite local artists to come and participate,” she said. “It’s about trying to break down hierarchies.”

这块“公地”上举行的活动包括“绘画俱乐部”，由集体协同创作一件艺术品，一个人先开始——在一张28X33厘米尺幅的纸上画个简单的草图——然后由另一个人接手，在已有的基础上添加。如果一个人觉得画已经完成了，就可以另起一幅。“我们邀请本地的艺术家参与进来，”她说：“我们要消灭等级的隔膜。”

But Ms. Schultz was quick to credit the Internet with helping fuel the project’s success. Even that project, “which is designed around creating real time, face-to-face experiences, relies on a Web-based calendar to share and update information about events,” said Ms. Schultz. “And Facebook and Twitter help us stay in touch with a community of participants and users.”

不过舒尔茨很快也提到了互联网对项目运作的助益。即便是这个“针对实时、面对面体验而设计的项目，也需要依靠在线日程表来分享和更新活动信息，”舒尔茨说：“我们借助Facebook和Twitter与参与者和用户的社区保持联系。”

Even in the virtual world, the emphasis is on do-it-yourself. “Digital is definitely the biggest news in the field of education; it’s been a game-changer for everyone,” said Wendy Woon, the deputy director of education at the Museum of Modern Art. “It was as though the museum just got a new wing.”

甚至虚拟世界里也在强调自己动手。“数码技术无疑是教育领域最重大的变革;它彻底改变了每个人的生活，”现代艺术博物馆教育副总监温迪·伍恩(Wendy Woon)说：“简直就像是博物馆新建了一座附楼。”

Just as art-making classes are all the rage at museums themselves, the same could be said of their courses online. At the Museum of Modern Art, there are in-house programs and digital art-making courses.

艺术创作课程的风潮已经在博物馆界兴起，在线课程也毫不示弱。现代艺术博物馆筹办了自己的教学项目和数码艺术创作课程。

One is called the Print Studio, a series of programs and workshops. “You can just come and make things,” Ms. Woon said. “And there’s a library of images for you to draw from. Triple Canopy, the online magazine and workspace, was here, with the artist and illustrator Jorge Columbo, who lead a digital finger-painting workshop, showing people how to create a work of art on their iPhones or iPads using brushes.”

其中一个叫印刷工作室，由一系列教学项目和讲习班组成。“你可以直接过来做点东西，”伍恩女士说：“这里有一个图片库可供你临摹。还有一本叫《Triple Canopy》的在线杂志和工作坊，艺术家、插画家豪尔赫·科伦波(Jorge Columbo)主讲的一个‘指画讲习班’会向大家展示如何用笔刷在他们的iPhone和iPad上绘画。”

The museum’s online studio-based courses are the first to sell out. One teaches about Barnett Newman and how he created his paintings. “It’s helping you to understand the process of what the artists go through,” Ms. Woon said. The courses aren’t cheap, costing about $350, with discounts for students, members and teachers.

在博物馆的教学项目中，以艺术家工作室为核心内容的在线课程是最早满员的。其中一个课程讲的是巴内特·纽曼(Barnett Newman)及其创作手法。沃恩女士说：“这个课程是要帮助你了解艺术家的创作过程。”课程收费不菲，需要350美元左右，对学生、会员和教师可以打折。

One online class about postwar painting techniques brought together a group from all over the world, “everywhere from Istanbul to the Bronx,” Ms. Woon said. “They meet and see shows together. They even got together in Paris and shared their experiences on Facebook.”

一个关于战后绘画技法的在线课程吸引了来自世界各地的求学者，“从伊斯坦布尔到纽约布朗克斯，”伍恩女士说：“他们聚到一起，一起展览作品。他们甚至还在巴黎聚会，在Facebook上分享各自的感受。”

Ms. Woon added that in the 21st century, “museums are well-placed as we move from consumption to innovation to stimulate ideas and creativity.”

沃恩女士还提到，在21世纪，“博物馆正明智地从消耗转向创新，以此来激发想法和创造力”。