美国国际肖像画廊出现亚洲面孔

National Portrait Gallery curator Dorothy Moss and artist Hung Liu got together more than a dozen times over the past few years, often at Liu's studio in Oakland, Cal., to try to figure out what to put in a major retrospective of the artist's work, opening at the museum this Friday.

在过去的几年里，国家肖像画廊馆长多萝西·莫斯和艺术家刘虹会面过十几次，通常是在刘强东位于加州奥克兰的工作室，他们想讨论弄清楚在这位艺术家的主要作品回顾展上放些什么，该回顾展将于本周五在博物馆开幕。

Liu was 73 when she died earlier this month, only weeks after being diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer. 

本月早些时候，在被诊断为胰腺癌晚期几周后，刘虹去世了，享年73岁。

She had a prolific career, punctuated by international shows, and prestigious fellowships and awards, so selecting 50 or so works from the thousands of possibilities was daunting.

她的职业生涯很多产，不时参加国际展览，也获得过颇有声望的奖学金和奖项，所以从成千上万的作品中挑选大约50件作品是一件并不轻松的事情。

"Oh my gosh, how are we going to narrow this down?" Moss asked aloud during one of her meetings with the artist, which she recorded for posterity and shared with us. 

“我的天哪，我们怎么才能选出来呢？”莫斯在之前的一次会面中大声问道，为了后来者和大众们能看到，她把这次会面记录了下来。

Liu agreed, chuckling: "I know!"

刘女士也同意，笑道：“是啊！”

Speaking with us from her office recently, Moss said the exhibition that eventually came out of that process, Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, stands in stark contrast to the museum's countless images of powerful white men.

莫斯最近在她的办公室接受我们采访时表示，最终在筛选过程完成后呈现的展览《刘虹:应许之地的肖像》，与博物馆里无数权势白人男性的形象形成了鲜明对比。

"The scale is monumental," Moss said. 

“规模是空前的，”莫斯说道。

"The colors are searing. The texture is dripping with linseed oil, like a veil of tears. And the faces: there's so much humanity in the faces."

“颜色很鲜明。画布仿佛渗出亚麻籽油，像一层眼泪的面纱。还有这些面孔:这些面孔上充满了人性。”

The faces Liu paints are mostly those of Chinese peasants and prostitutes from historical photographs she's taken or collected over the years, and Dust Bowl migrants inspired by Dorothea Lange's Depression Era photographs.

刘虹绘画的面孔大多是她多年来拍摄或收集的历史照片中的中国农民和底层妓女，以及受多萝西娅·兰格大萧条时期照片启发的大萧条时期的移民。

"That is shocking in the National Portrait Gallery, to see that perspective," Moss said. 

“在国家肖像长廊上看到画上的景象是很震撼的，”莫斯说道。

"And therein lies her contribution to the history of portraiture."

“这就是她对肖像史的贡献。”  

In a 2005 KQED video profile, Liu explained how she approaches her subjects. 

在2005年旧金山公共广播电视台的一段视频中，刘女士解释了她是如何处理她的研究对象的。

"Somehow you need to make a connection with whatever your subject," she said, as she sketched the outlines of a painting depicting a Chinese peasant on a large canvas. 

“无论你的主题是什么，你都需要与之建立联系，”她一边说，一边在一张大画布上勾勒出一幅描绘中国农民的画的轮廓。

"Because when you have a human figure in any photograph or painting, you always ask, you know, 'who's this?'"

“因为当你在任何照片或绘画中看到一个人物时，你总是会问，'这是谁?’”

With her art, Hung Liu insisted that we see those who might otherwise be invisible. 

通过她的艺术品，刘虹坚称，我们要看到那些本来不被注意到的人们。

As the first Asian American woman ever to get a solo retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery, Liu elevates other artists of color in a similar way, said her friend and fellow artist Mildred Howard.

作为首位在国家肖像画廊举办个人回顾展的亚裔美国女性，刘虹也相应提升了其他彩绘艺术家的地位，她的朋友兼艺术家同事米尔德丽德·霍华德说。

"Hung is one of those artists that was breaking those barriers so that people like me can be represented for what we do," Howard said. 

霍华德说，“刘虹是打破这些障碍的艺术家之一，这样也可以代表一些像我这样的人所做的事情，”

"She was one of the artists that helped us to get a place at the table."

“她是艺术家中伟大的一员，帮助我们也赢得了 一席之地。”