Books and Arts; Art and the Middle East
文艺；艺术和中东

Qatar's culture queen
卡塔尔的艺术女王

At 29, Sheikha Mayassa Al Thani is the art world's most powerful woman. Is she using her money well?
年仅29岁，Sheikha Mayassa Al Thani已经成为了艺术界中最有权的女人。她能支配好手中的钱吗？

The starkly beautiful Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Doha, Qatar, is a fine setting for a dinner. Last month 200 dealers, collectors and curators gathered there for the opening of the first showing in the Middle East of work by Takashi Murakami. The hostess of the evening sat laughing with the pony-tailed Japanese artist on her right. On her left was Dakis Joannou, a Greek-Cypriot industrialist and avid collector of the work of Jeff Koons, an American sculptor. Larry Gagosian, whom many regard as the most powerful art dealer in the world, was placed at a table nearby, with the other art dealers.
位于卡塔尔多哈的伊斯兰艺术博物馆（MIA）美丽绝伦，是个很适宜举办晚宴的地方。上个月200名交易商，收藏家和馆长曾于Takashi Murakami作品在中东首次展出的开幕式中云集于此。晚会的女主人正同坐在她右侧的那位扎着马尾辫的日本艺术家谈笑着，她的右边则坐着一位Greek-Cypriot实业家—Dakis Joannou，他同时也是一位对美国雕塑家Jeff Koons的作品情有独钟的狂热收藏家。而被认为是当今世界上最具权利的艺术品交易商—Larry Gagosian,则被与他的一些同行们一块安置在附近的桌上。

Few people could get away with asking Mr Gagosian to dinner halfway around the globe, only to sit him with the rest of the class. Sheikha Mayassa Al Thani is one. The emir of Qatar's daughter has become one of the most talked-about figures of the international art world: collector, patron, cultural advocate. Mr Gagosian is not the only one who would like to catch her eye.
绕了半个地球把Mr Gagosian请来参加晚宴，却将其与其他交易商晾在一块，很少人有资格这么做，但Sheikha Mayassa就是其中的一个。这位卡塔尔酋长的女儿作为收藏家，资助人和文化倡议者，已经成为了国际艺术界中被谈论得最多的角色之一。希望引起她注意的人绝对不止Mr Gagosian一个。

Until the 1980s Qatar was little more than a sandy backwater. Even its native pearl industry was on its last legs. The discovery of oil and, later, of the third-largest gas reserves in the world have made the pear-shaped peninsula unusually rich. In 2010 its tiny population had the third highest per capita GDP in the world and its economy grew by 16.6%, faster than any other. But even Qatar's oil and gas will one day run out. Transforming the country from a hydrocarbon economy to a knowledge economy in time for the post-oil afterlife is the local mantra.
在九十年代之前，卡塔尔基本上只能说是一片落后的多沙地带。即使是土生土长的民族珍珠工业也到了濒危状态。但随着石油，以及后来的一块世界第三大天然气田的发现，这个呈梨形半岛状的地方变得非一般富裕起来。在2010年，他们那一丁点儿人口的人均GDP达到了世界第三，并且经济总量增长率高达16.6%，比世界上任何一个国家都要快。不过，即使卡塔尔拥有的石油和天然气资源再多，也终有用尽的一天。如何为将来的后石油时期做准备，及时将卡塔尔由一个碳氢经济国家转变为一个知识经济国家，是当地时刻都在念叨的一个问题。

The emir's blueprint, “Qatar National Vision 2030”, is leading to new schools and universities (in an area of the capital known as Education City), as well as a post-production centre to service the international film industry, and even a paperless hospital. New museums to showcase Qatar's collections of Islamic art, modernist Arab painting, photography, armour and natural history are all part of the plan.
而在他们酋长的蓝图——“卡塔尔展望2030”里，包括建设新的中小学及高校（在首都中一个被称作“教育城”的区域里），还有服务于国际电影工业的后期制作中心，甚至是无纸办公医院。建造新的博物馆去展示卡塔尔在伊斯兰艺术，现代阿拉伯绘画，摄影，古代盔甲以及博物学方面的收藏，也同样是这个计划的一部分。

At the same time Sheikh Saud's older brother, Sheikh Hassan, was buying 20th-century Arabic painting. Many of the artists were trained in Europe and the 6,000-piece collection at Mathaf, a modern-art museum in Education City, has a derivative feel. For a fledgling nation the paintings are important as an historical record.
与此同时，Sheikh Saud的大哥Sheikh Hassan，正在收购20世纪的阿拉伯绘画作品。由于它们的作者都是在欧洲训练出身，所以在Mathaf(教育城里面的一座现代艺术博物馆的6000件隐约有种一脉相承之感)。对于一个新兴国家来说这些绘画作品就同历史记载一般重要。

Now the call to culture has fallen to a new generation. Sheikha Mayassa was a tomboyish, competitive child, the result, she says, of having two older brothers. Encouraged by her mother, a middle-class Qatari educated in a mixed school in Cairo (who is now a force for education reform), she learned French, English and her native Arabic, and went on to study political science and literature at Duke University in North Carolina.
如今呼唤文化的重任已经降临到他们下一代的身上。Sheikha Mayassa从小就有着如男孩般好强的个性，她说这是由于她有两个大哥的缘故。受其母亲—一位曾于开罗的混合制学校接受教育的卡塔尔中产阶级鼓励，Sheikha Mayassa学习了法语，英语和本国的阿拉伯语。并且之后于美国北卡罗来纳州的杜克大学在政治科学及文学方面进行了继续深造。

Two years ago she and her husband, who had both been doing postgraduate work at Columbia University, returned home. Sheikha Mayassa's job, as the head of the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA), was to turn Qatar into a cultural powerhouse—a wellspring for exploring what art is and what it means for human beings to create it. “Above all, we want the QMA to be a ‘cultural instigator', a catalyst of arts projects worldwide,” a trustee says.
两年前Sheikha Mayassa同她的丈夫一块儿回到了祖国（她俩之前曾于哥伦比亚大学修读研究生）。现在作为卡塔尔博物馆管理局（QMA）的负责人，她的工作就是努力成为一个“文化发电厂”，成为人类探索艺术真谛的源泉。“首先，我们希望QMA能够成为一个‘文化煽动者'，进而推动世界范围内的艺术项目的进行”，QMA的一位成员这样说道。

Sheikha Mayassa works in a spacious office on the top floor of the MIA. Its walls are lined in pale beech wood, and behind her long desk stretches an array of framed family photographs. Dressed in a black abaya, her hair covered, she wears hardly any jewellery other than a childlike bracelet made of coloured thread with a single gold charm, a tiny Arabic coffeepot or dallah. It retails for $82 in the museum shop.
Sheikha Mayassa的日常工作在MIA顶层的一个宽敞的办公室中进行。墙的表面是灰白色的山毛榉木，在她的长桌后是一排经过装裱的其家人的相片。Sheikha Mayassa身着黑色长袍，头发都被遮住了，全身上下看不到一丝珠宝的影子，除了一个孩子气十足的手镯，那是由一根彩线及一个金色小饰物—一个小巧的阿拉伯式咖啡壶（dallah）构成，在博物馆商店里的零售价是$82。

The QMA is a government body, but it remains wholly a family affair. In her first major interview, Sheikha Mayassa explains: “The QMA is very much my father's baby. He wanted to create something…to connect with the community, to create a culture dialogue within society. We report directly to him. The nice thing about my father is that he doesn't interfere in the day-to-day business. We present the strategy, and once he agrees with the strategy and the vision we are given the authority and freedom to go ahead and execute them in the way we think fit.”
QMA虽是一个政府部门，实则完全按照处理家族内部事务的模式来运行。在接受的第一次采访中，Sheikha Mayassa这样解释道：“QMA就是我父亲的一个孩子，他想创造一些东西...与各种团体进行沟通交流，也希望社会中能出现更多对文化的探讨。我们的工作情况直接向他汇报。他的一个优点就是不会去干预我们部门的日常工作。我们先制定出工作策略让他过目，一旦我们的看法获得他的认可，我们就能放开手脚将其以我们认为合适的方式予以执行。”

The QMA is not part of the Culture Ministry, though they do co-operate. The museum agency works with local franchises of foreign universities, such as University College London, on arts administration and museum management. It recruits heavily from abroad, especially at a senior level. The director of the public-arts programme is a Dutchman, Jean-Paul Engelen, who came from Christie's. Edward Dolman, Christie's one-time British chief executive, runs Sheikha Mayassa's office. The director of the MIA is 32-year-old Aisha Al Khater, the first Qatari woman to gain a degree in music. But the four specialist curators below her are all foreign. Two more are about to join them, an expert on manuscripts and another on coins.
QMA其实并非文化部的一部分，虽然他们会经常进行合作。在艺术品及博物馆管理问题上，博物馆办事处经常同外国高校（如伦敦大学）在当地的分支机构合作。目前它正大量招募海外人才，尤其是那些资深级别的。公众艺术节目的导演Jean-Paul Engelen就是一个荷兰人，他对Christie的小说并不感冒。而Sheikha Mayassa的部门中的日常事务，则由Christie曾经聘用过的总经理——英国人Edward Dolman来管理。MIA的主管是32岁的Aisha Al Khater，她是第一位取得音乐学位的卡塔尔女性。不过她手下的4位专家主任都是外国人，还有两个也即将加入，他们分别是研究手稿及硬币方面的专家。

The QMA budget is not made public. Decisions on funding and acquisitions are taken by a small group at the top of the organisation. Although she did not say so in her interview, Sheikha Mayassa insists these remain secret for fear their ideas might be stolen by such states as Sharjah or Saudi Arabia. For those outside this inner circle decisions can seem arbitrary and confusing. Two MIA directors left after a relatively short time and earlier this month Wassan al-Khudairi announced that, after just a year as the head of Mathaf, she too was returning to academic life.
QMA的预算并没有对外部公开。在对项目拨款及物品采购问题上有资格做决定的，只有该组织结构顶层的一个小团体。尽管在接受采访时并没有明说，但Sheikha Mayassa一直坚称之所以采取这些保密措施，是为了防止他们的构思被沙迦及沙特阿拉伯等国家所窃取。话虽如此，不过在那个小团体之外的人看来，这些决定可能是武断的，而且让人摸不着头脑。之前两位MIA主管在加入不久就离开了，并且这个月早前Wassan al-Khudairi也宣布，在担任了Mathaf的馆长一年以后，她也将回归自己专心于学术研究的生活。

Art mart
艺术交易

Attracting local audiences is a priority, the Sheikha says. The MIA, with its grand, forbidding approach (pictured), is not welcoming to the tens of thousands of migrant workers who flock to Qatar from Pakistan and other parts of South Asia. To help counter that, the QMA aims to open up its museums more to schoolchildren. It also wants to encourage local artists and to commission sculpture and photography by both Qatari and international artists for the new airport that opens in December and the vast new Sidra medical centre that will be finished probably next year.
Sheikhas说，吸引当地观众进入参观是目前的首要任务。不过MIA那个宏伟而又令人生畏的入口（构想中的）并不欢迎从巴基斯坦或南亚的其他国家迁居至卡塔尔的工人。为了帮助抵制工人们的进入，QMA计划将博物馆更多地面向小学生开放。他们还想鼓励当地的艺术家进行艺术创作，并且为将于今年12月开放的新机场和可能于明年完工的广阔的新锡德拉疗养中心向卡塔尔及国际范围内的艺术家们委托以雕塑作品的制作并进行摄影作品的征集。

In addition to the Islamic and modern Arabic art museums, which now fall under the QMA, a new interactive museum of sport and the Olympics is slowly taking shape to coincide with Qatar's hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The biggest project, though, is the construction of a national museum for Qatar, which will open in 2016. Its French architect, Jean Nouvel, has used the local desert rose as a motif for the exterior walls. Twelve interior galleries will tell the 300,000 Qataris their national story, from prehistoric times through to the development of their pearl industry and the discovery of oil and gas, exploring local traditions about the desert, food, fishing, falconry and folklore.
除了伊斯兰艺术和现代阿拉伯艺术博物馆（目前它们均已被纳入QMA管辖范围），一座新的关于体育和奥林匹克的互动型博物馆正在缓慢成型，这是为了2022年将在卡塔尔举办的世界杯而修建。但最庞大的项目是将于2016年对外开放的一个卡塔尔国家博物馆的建造。它的建筑师—来自法国的Jean Nouvel,使用了当地的沙漠玫瑰作为其外墙的主题，其内部的12条展廊将会向卡塔尔的国民诉说关于他们这个民族的故事，从史前时代到珍珠工业的发展，直至石油和天然气的发现，并对与沙漠，饮食，钓鱼，猎鹰训练和民间传说的当地传统进行了一番探索。

The QMA is very good at borrowing from other museums. The MIA version of the “Gifts of the Sultan” show that started last year in Los Angeles includes objects from Russia's Hermitage museum that the American exhibition did not have. A Qatari version of the British Museum's new “Haj” show will very likely have objects from the Topkapi Palace museum that were blocked by the Turkish authorities. In response to a British block on taking home two major art works that the QMA bought at auction in London, the Qataris have skilfully negotiated long-term loan agreements with two British museums that will also provide help in training Qatari staff.
QMA十分善于向其他博物馆进行借鉴学习。有个叫“苏丹王的礼物”的展览会去年在洛杉矶开展，而该版本的MIA版本则青出于蓝胜于蓝—-还收录了从俄罗斯的Hermitage博物馆中借来的珍品（美国举办的展览中是没有的）。而学习于英国“新朝圣”展览会的一次展出中，也很可能会出现从Topkapi Palace museum中借来的一些珍藏，之前这一直是遭到土耳其当局封锁的。QMA曾在伦敦的一个拍卖会上购得两件主要艺术品，但由于英国政府的阻止而无法运送回国，最终他们通过娴熟的谈判技巧同两家英国博物馆达成了长期租借协议，并且英国方面将会为训练卡塔尔方面的工作人员提供帮助。

Whereas nearby Abu Dhabi is franchising outlets of the Louvre and the Guggenheim, Qatar is growing its own museums. Sheikha Mayassa's use of its Islamic and Orientalist collections to explain the region's history makes sense. Less clear is why she has been buying Western art. Over the past seven years the Al Thani family is estimated to have spent at least $1 billion on Western painting, sculpture and installations, including the last privately held version of Paul Cezanne's “The Card Players” for over $250m—a record price for a work of art. That acquisition, which took place in early 2011 but was reported only last month, is just the latest in a series of purchases that includes some of the very best works made by Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst, a number of them bought for record prices. Speculation about the Al Thanis' art buying has been fuelled by the family's blank refusal to confirm or deny any of the rumours and its reluctance to clarify whether its acquisitions are private or on behalf of the state—or even to explain how they might benefit Qatar's citizens.
当旁边的阿布扎比正为卢浮宫和Guggenheim在当地建立分支时，卡塔尔开始发展起自己的博物馆了。Sheikha Mayassa通过利用博物馆的伊斯兰和东方的收藏品去阐释这个国家的历史是有意义的。让人不解的是她对西方艺术作品的购入。经估计，Al Thani家族于过去7年中已在对西方的绘画作品，雕塑作品及各种设施的购买上花费了至少10亿美元，其中包括用2亿5000万购买保罗·塞尚的作品—《玩牌的人》的最后一件私人持有版，这对任何艺术品来说都是创纪录的价格。他们的这次大手笔虽然在2011年年初便已敲定，但直到上个月才被报道出来。在最近的这一次出手之前，他们已经完成了一系列的收购，其中不乏出自弗兰西斯·培根, 马克·罗斯科, 安迪·沃霍尔，和达米恩·赫斯特等名家之手的传世精品，其中相当一部分均已创纪录的价格购入。关于Al Thani家族大量购买艺术品的行为有许多谣言，由于他们既拒绝对其予以确认或否认，又不愿澄清他们的行为是属于私人性质抑还是代表国家——或者解释下这些东西将会如何造福卡塔尔人民，各种与之相关的猜测便如火上添油般愈演愈烈了。

Sheikha Mayassa is keen to bring some big names to Doha. A Murakami show at the Palace of Versailles in 2010 led to the Japanese artist's Doha retrospective. Mr Hirst's show at Tate Modern in London, which opens on April 4th and which is costing the QMA more than ￡2m to sponsor, will give rise next year to a Hirst show in Qatar, another first for the region.
Sheikha Mayassa十分热衷于将那些一个个“响当当的名字”引入多哈。Murakami作品展于2010年在凡尔赛宫举办过后，多哈也为这位日本艺术家的作品举办了一场回顾展出。Hirst作品展今年四月在伦敦泰特陈列馆举办过后（QMA对其投入了200万英镑进行赞助），也将于明年第一次登陆卡塔尔这个国度。

In order for the QMA to be more than a rich girl's plaything, Sheikha Mayassa will have to do better than put expensive foreign baubles on display in her homeland. She needs to be far more innovative and focused in choosing between the hundreds of exhibitions the QMA gets offered. Last year's showing at the MIA of German Baroque from Dresden made no sense. Cai Guo-Qiang's evocative exploration, now at Mathaf, of the ancient links between China and the Gulf is new and original.
要想使QMA不仅仅是一个富家女的玩物，Sheikha Mayassa若只是将国外的一些花哨玩意儿搬进卡塔尔是远远不够的。她必须更具创造性，并在对被提供至眼前的成百上千展会举办计划进行挑选时更加注意。像去年MIA举办的德国巴洛克作品展就是没有任何意义的。而现在Mathaf所举办的蔡国强作品展则是别出心裁的，它对中国和波斯湾各国之间的古代渊源进行了探索。

An absolute monarchy like Qatar is a hard place in which to encourage the daring, irreverence and subversiveness that is the hallmark of a truly artistic nature. Not everyone in Qatar is persuaded of art's importance. The local blogosphere is full of suggestions that the country would do better with a Formula One racetrack or another football stadium. And the recent sudden announcement that Qatar University would switch to teaching in Arabic instead of English is a sign that conservative nationalists have real power here. In her introduction to the Tate's Hirst catalogue, Sheikha Mayassa writes that “Art—even controversial art—can unlock communication between diverse nations, peoples and histories.” The years ahead will test her resolve—Qatar's too.
在卡塔尔这样一个完全奉行君主制的国家里，要想鼓励冒险精神，非虔诚，以及艺术天性的标志—颠覆，真的很难。并非所有的卡塔尔人都认可艺术的重要性。“修建一条F1赛车跑道或者一座足球场对我们国家更加有力”—这样的意见经常浮现于网民的博客日志中。而从最近突然公布的一条关于卡塔尔大学将由英语教学方式改为以阿拉伯语进行的通知中，可以看出保守的民族主义者在那儿是握有实权的。在对泰特美术馆中展出的赫斯特作品目录进行介绍时，Sheikha Mayassa这样写道：“艺术—即使是备受争议的艺术—能开启不同国家，不同民族和不同历史间的交流。”未来将对她的决定—也是卡塔尔的，作出检验。