LOS ANGELES — Traditional art museums are some of the most conservative and controlling institutions on earth. They are built as vaults to preserve the past, and as monuments to edited histories. In the Gilded Age America of a century or so ago, many new museums were also monuments to private collectors — Henry Clay Frick, J. P. Morgan, Isabella Stewart Gardner — who strove to shape and fix an image that history would have of them, as enlightened power brokers of their day and benefactors to the future.

洛杉矶——传统艺术博物馆是世界上最保守、最具控制力的机构之一。它们是储存过去时光的贮藏室，也是用来编纂历史的纪念碑。在百余年前正处于镀金时代的美国，许多新建的博物馆也是私人收藏家的丰碑——亨利·克雷·弗里克(Henry Clay Frick)、J·P·摩根(J. P. Morgan)、伊莎贝拉·斯图尔特·加德纳(Isabella Stewart Gardner)——他们努力把自己打造为当时开明的权力影响者，乃至对未来世界的馈赠者，希望以这样的历史形象定格于人们心目中。

In our present Gilded Age, private collection museums are again proliferating, but with a difference. Most are devoted to new art, art without a past. The stories they tell are not yet history, but exist in a state of flux. The very definition of collecting, in a time of speculative buying, is now up for grabs. Shouldn’t these changes radically alter the old museum model, loosen it up, make it more experimental, shift its identity from locked treasure house to clearinghouse for fresh ideas?

在我们当今的镀金时代，私人收藏博物馆再一次兴起，但又有所不同。大多数私人收藏家专注于新艺术，没有历史的艺术。博物馆讲述的故事还未变为历史，而是存在于一种不断流动的状态中。“收藏”的定义在投机购买的时代不再分明。这些变化是否会给旧有的博物馆模式带来巨大的改变，是否会让它更松散、更富于试验性，从保存珍宝的带锁房间变成新鲜观念的交易所呢？

These questions arise as one of the most eagerly anticipated private museums of contemporary art in the country approaches its opening here next week.

下周，全国最受期待的私人当代艺术馆之一即将在这里开放，这些问题又浮现出来。

Called The Broad (pronounced brode) and housed in a $140 million, three-story building by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, it enshrines the collection of some 2,000 works owned by Eli and Edythe Broad, two of this city’s leading philanthropists.

这家艺术馆名叫“布洛德”(The Broad)，坐落在Diller, Scofidio and Renfro建筑事务所旁边一栋价值1.4亿美元的三层楼建筑之内。它藏有2000件左右的作品，属于伊莱(Eli)与埃德斯·布洛德(Edythe Broad)，他们是本市首屈一指的慈善家。

Mr. Broad, a billionaire who made his fortune in home building, has arguably had more impact shaping this city’s cultural identity than anyone else in recent times. For nearly 50 years, he and his wife have been among the country’s most assiduous contemporary collectors. They began picking up work by hot young artists — Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman — in Manhattan in the early 1980s, later filling in historical blanks and doing some buying in their own California backyard.

布洛德先生是一位靠家装起家的亿万富翁，有人认为在最近一个时代里，他对这个城市的文化身份带来的影响比任何人都大。将近50年里，他和妻子一直都是美国最为孜孜不倦的当代艺术收藏家。20世纪80年代初，在曼哈顿，他们从收集让-米切尔·巴斯奎特(Jean-Michel Basquiat)和辛迪·舍曼(Cindy Sherman)等当红年轻艺术家的作品开始，后来渐渐填补历史空白，在两人加利福尼亚州的大本营做些采购。

The inaugural display is clearly intended to show the collection in representative form, and does. The museum’s founding director and chief curator, Joanne Heyler, has installed some 200 works more or less chronologically on the building’s skylighted third floor, beginning with a clutch of classic pieces by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly. Mr. Johns’s 1964 “Watchman” is a star; a blood-red Rauschenberg abstraction from a decade earlier is less familiar, but the Broads cashed in a Van Gogh drawing to acquire it.

博物馆的开幕展显然旨在以最有代表性的形式来展现他们的收藏，也的确起到了很好的效果。博物馆的创建指导、首席策展人乔安妮·海勒(Joanne Heyler)在馆内有天窗照明的三楼展示了200余件作品，主要是按年代排序，以贾斯珀·约翰斯(Jasper Johns)、罗伯特·劳森贝格(Robert Rauschenberg)和赛·托姆布雷(Cy Twombly)的一系列经典之作开始。约翰斯1964年的《守望者》(Watchman)是重点作品；劳森贝格十几年前创作的一幅血红色的抽象画比较罕为人知，但却是布洛德夫妇用一幅梵高的作品换回来的。

Andy Warhol, whose Campbell’s Soup Can pictures Ms. Broad first saw (but didn’t buy) as early as the 1960s, has a small gallery of his own; Roy Lichtenstein has a larger one. He is a Broad favorite; they own 34 pieces (there are 10 here), as is his successor in formally polished Pop, Jeff Koons, of whose works the Broads have the greatest number in private hands. Is this something to brag about? An argument can be made that Mr. Koons’s work usefully casts a cold eye on an American, and now global, addiction to bright, empty, throwaway things. But what happens when a presumably critical art is indistinguishable from its target, or is not critical after all? Then chances are good it’s headed for history’s scrap heap, eventually if not now.

早在60年代，布洛德夫人就见过安迪·沃霍尔(Andy Warhol)的坎贝尔汤罐头组图，不过没有买下。当时沃霍尔拥有一个自己的小画廊；罗伊·利希滕斯坦(Roy Lichtenstein)则拥有一个大一点的画廊。沃霍尔是布洛德艺术馆的最爱，布洛德夫妇拥有他的34幅作品（本次展出了10幅），此外还有他在正规波普艺术中的后继者杰夫·昆斯(Jeff Koons)的作品，布洛德夫妇是昆斯作品最大的私人藏家。这难道不值得夸耀吗？有人认为，美国迷恋光彩、空洞的一次性物品，如今更是扩展到全球，昆斯的作品正是对这种现象的冷眼旁观。但是如果一种可能意味着批判的艺术与它所批判的对象变得难以区分，又会怎样呢？抑或它根本不是一种批判？那么它很有可能最终会走入历史的垃圾堆，即便不是发生在现在。

Speaking of critical commentary, in an inspired compare-and-contrast move, Ms. Heyler has inserted a 1995 panoramic city painting by the Los Angeles artist Lari Pittman into the Koons gallery. Mr. Pittman’s work, too, comes out of a Pop corner and is formally airtight. It’s also conceptually razor-sharp. It deals with all the American subjects Mr. Koons does — sex, religion, celebrity, death — but with a focus and bite that he lacks.

说到批判性评论，海勒运用自己的灵感，采取了对比的做法，把洛杉矶艺术家拉里·皮特曼(Lari Pittman)一幅1995年的城市全景油画放到昆斯的作品中去。皮特曼的作品也是来自波普艺术界，被密封着。它在概念上也非常犀利，昆斯所使用的全部美国主题——性、信仰、名人与死亡——皮特曼也全部涉猎，不过带有昆斯所缺乏的重点和刺激性。

The concentration of Los Angeles art is the most interesting aspect of the inaugural show, at least for this East Coast viewer. Ed Ruscha’s laconically meticulous word paintings and John Baldessari’s recycled film images may fit the collection’s clean-lined Pop proclivities, while the acidic zaniness of Mike Kelley’s work does not, but the Broads bought plenty of it over the years. I’m always glad to see it, and I’m even gladder to encounter things I’ve never seen, like the sculpture called “Bateau de Guerre” by the apocalypse-minded Chris Burden, who died in May. A whirring, blinking death star made of gas cans and toy guns, it wasn’t in the recent Burden retrospective that came to New York.

这场开幕展最有意思的一个特点是，它关注洛杉矶艺术，至少对于一位来自东海岸的观者是这样的。艾德·拉斯查(Ed Ruscha)简洁而注重细节的单词画，以及约翰·巴尔代萨里(John Baldessari)的回收胶片图像颇为适合该展览鲜明的波普倾向；迈克·凯利(Mike Kelley)的迷幻疯狂之作虽然并不是波普，但布洛德夫妻多年来也买下了很多。看到它一直都让我很高兴，而看到那些我从未见过的作品就让我更高兴，比如具有末世意识的艺术家克里斯·伯顿(Chris Burden)的雕塑《战舰》(Bateau de Guerre)，他于5月逝世。这是一颗呼啸闪烁的死亡之星，由瓦斯罐与玩具枪制成，近期来到纽约的伯顿回顾展并没有收入它。

I wish there were more things like it here, under-known, offbeat, less than neat. And there could be. With a reported $200- million-plus endowment and additional funds for acquisitions — nearly that of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art combined — the Broad will be doing a lot more buying. And it would be good if this museum started to stray from the blue-chip-masterpiece path that winds its way from Mr. Koons on the third floor to a gallery on the first floor of big, bland, abstract pictures by Mark Grotjahn and Christopher Wool, artists who, because they cover walls with work that is indisputably “art,” have become universal collection staples.

我希望能有更多类似这样的展览：鲜为人知、不落俗套，不那么整齐。这是完全有可能的。据报道，布洛德艺术馆拥有2亿多美元的基金和其余款项，用于收购藏品，大约相当于洛杉矶乡村艺术博物馆(Los Angeles County Museum of Art)与当代艺术馆(Museum of Contemporary Art)的总和，因此他们会进行更多收购。如果艺术馆不再走收购著名杰作路线，不再买下那么多三楼收藏的昆斯，乃至一楼的马克·格洛特雅恩(Mark Grotjahn)和克里斯托弗·伍尔(Christopher Wool)等艺术家那种大大的、平庸的、抽象的作品，那就更好了，因为这些艺术家都是用无可争辩的“艺术”来覆盖墙壁，早已成了各种展览的固定项目。

Their presence here makes the Broad feel ordinary, old-school, predictable. A tight, unadventurous building design doesn’t help. The exterior, with its sheets of perforated, biomorphic white cladding — the color and texture of gefilte fish — is eye-filling but unmagical, though there are nice touches inside. The cavernlike lobby sets up a mood of mystery. The third floor skylights are a pleasure, as are occasional breaks in the white-box gallery walls that give glimpses onto the street.

它们的出现令布洛德显得平凡、老派，没有出人意料之处。结构紧凑、毫无冒险精神的艺术馆建筑更是没有帮助。建筑外观是穿孔的薄片，覆盖着白色的生物形态涂层——这是犹太鱼丸的质地与颜色——它足够吸引眼球，却并不神奇。不过内部有一些漂亮的设计，洞穴般的大厅有种神秘色彩。三楼的天窗很不错，此外白盒子般的墙壁上偶有裂隙，可以一窥街景。

The street is Grand Avenue, which Mr. Broad, in consultation with the city government, has long planned to develop into a downtown cultural district. The Broad is part of that plan. So is the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall next door to it, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, which Mr. Broad helped found and has generously supported, directly across the street. In a stretched-out, traffic-clogged city it takes a long time to travel anywhere. You need a good reason to go where you’re going. By offering free admission, Mr. Broad intends his museum to be a popular destination.

艺术馆下面是格兰德大道，布洛德先生早有计划，将这里发展为艺术区，目前正在与市政府磋商。布洛德艺术馆自然也是该计划的一部分，还有隔壁由弗兰克·盖里(Frank Gehry)设计的沃尔特·迪士尼音乐厅，以及坐落在街对面，由布洛德先生协助创立并慷慨支持的当代艺术馆。在这样一个拥堵的大城市，去哪里都要花很长的时间。想去什么地方真得有个好理由不可。布洛德先生的艺术馆是免票进入的，他希望这里成为一个受欢迎的好地方。

It surely will be while it’s new, and in the news, and could continue to be. The Broads have always viewed their holdings as a public asset that they make accessible through an active institutional loan program. They refer to their holdings as a lending library, with items regularly leaving for other museums and returning. This traffic flow, enhanced by the arrival of new acquisitions, should encourage people to make repeat visits, knowing they are likely to see new things each time.

当它还新鲜，是新闻的时候，这当然没问题，它也有可能持续受人欢迎。布洛德夫妇一直都觉得自己的藏品是属于公众的财富，所以他们通过一个活跃的公共贷款项目，让公众可以看到这些藏品。他们把自己的藏品当做一个租赁图书馆，经常把藏品借给其他艺术馆展出，与其他艺术馆互相借还。这种交流由于新藏品，得到了进一步加强，人们知道经常能看到新展品，肯定会愿意常常再来参观。

But even with this mechanism for flexibility, the Broad is a museum of an old-fashioned kind. It’s been built to preserve a private collection conceived on a masterpiece ideal and consisting almost entirely of distinctive objects: paintings and sculptures; precious things. Apart from most of the objects being new, or at least not old, the Broad could have existed, pretty much as is, a century ago.

但是就算有这种结构上的流动性，布洛德仍然属于那种老式的博物馆。它的建造是用来储存私人收藏，其中都是杰作典范，而且基本只有两种形式：绘画和雕塑；它们都是珍宝。除了拥有最新的藏品，或者那些至少不古老的藏品，布洛德艺术馆好像本应当存在于一个世纪之前，也非常像百年之前的东西。

But, of course, art itself has changed. It is no longer only about things, hasn’t been for decades. Since the great surge of dematerialization introduced by conceptualism in the 1960s, art has been about, among other things, ideas, actions, sounds, performance, networks, communication. The Broad will have to catch up with this alternative history, a history that the audience it wants to attract and hold already knows. What better way to do so than through collaboration with an institution that has a stake in exploring the same history, meaning, of course, the Museum of Contemporary Art across the street.

但是，当然，艺术本身也在改变。几十年来，它已经不再只是关于事物。随着60年代概念主义带来的非物质化大潮，艺术已经变成了观念、行为、声音、表演、网络与交流。布洛德艺术馆应当抓住这种另类历史，这种历史所希望吸引和抓住的观众已经深深了解了它。最好的办法，莫过于和另一个同样应当探索这段历史的机构合作，当然，我是指街对面的当代艺术馆。

The two could share, to their mutual benefit, space, expertise and personnel. What they already share is a tough time for museums and a history with Mr. Broad, who, over a tireless half-century, has done wonders for art in this city, and, with the opening of his museum, is about to do more.

为了共同利益，两家艺术馆应当分享空间、专业知识与员工。目前，它们所分享的不过是艺术馆都要面对的艰难时光，以及与布洛德先生的渊源。布洛德先生不知疲倦地努力了半个世纪，已经为这座城市的艺术缔造了奇迹，现在有了自己的艺术馆，他还会做出更多贡献。