绿茶拿铁 Green Tea Latte

Stay safe

As most big cities, Santiago suffers from a high rate of pickpocketing and muggings. It's advisable not to travel in the downtown area wearing expensive-looking jewelry or watches, even during the day. Stay alert and be especially careful in all crowded areas in Santiago.

For tourists or other "beginners" lacking experience in over-the-counter transactions with hard Chilean currency, you can reduce the chance of your wallet getting stolen by following some advice:

• Separate coins and bills. Coins are frequently used when paying the (micro) bus and colectivo. Store them in a small handbag so that your bills will remain concealed.

• 1000-, 2000- and 5000-peso notes should be easily accessible. Bills with higher value should be stored in another, more secure place in your wallet so you don't accidently pay 10000 pesos instead of 1000, for example.

• Do not reach for your wallet until the vendor tells you the price.

• If a souvenir costs, for example, 1300 pesos, pay with a 2000-peso bill or two 1000-peso bills. Don't pay with, say, a 1000-peso bill and 300 pesos in loose change.

Chilean Carabineros (National Police) are very trustworthy--call 133 if you need assistance. If you have a GSM mobile phone, call 112. Some municipalities (such as Santiago or Las Condes) have private guards; however, they usually don't speak English. Do not try to bribe a carabinero--it will get you into serious trouble! Unlike other south american police corps, Chilean carabineros are very proud and honest, and bribery would be a serious offense against their creed.

Regarding driving conditions: Chilean drivers tend to be not as erratic and volatile as those in neighboring countries.

Since Chile is almost racially homogeneous, Chileans get curious and may stare at foreigners. If you are blonde, black or asian, be prepared. There have been reports of racist attacks, but they are infrequent, and the police (carabineros) have become better at handling such situations. If you are from the Middle East, it will be easier to blend in and will not get the same level of attention as a black or asian would, for instance.

Be careful if you are dressed like an emo. They are called "pokemons" because the haircuts reminds of the japanese animated series. Chileans may disapprove of the hairstyle and clothing. There have been an increase on attacks against them by skinheads and few chileans have sympathies for them. You will experience less problems if you embody some other genre like rock or hip-hop, for example.

 

Respect

• Although modern in many ways Chile remains basically traditional. You will fare better if you do not openly denigrate or flout those traditions. Ladies wear dresses or skirts of modest design, and men wear long pants, at least in the cities. People speak in conversational tones.
• Unlike other countries in Latin America, the Chilean police force is admired for its honesty and competence. Report any complaints to the police the moment you receive them, including criminal activity. Bribing is not acceptable in Chile, in comparison with the rest of the Latin America, and you'll likely get arrested for it.
• Do not assume that your hosts in Chile will have the opinion that Pinochet is bad. He still has many supporters, so be careful when raising the issue. Even if you want to talk other political subjects than Pinochet, people can get very aggressive when it comes to politics. Depending on your opinions, they can either call you "communist" or "fascist."
• Chileans are very friendly people. Use your common sense to avoid danger.
• Be careful: many people can speak and understand English, even the lower class...be polite.
• Chileans hate arrogance. Be arrogant and you will have problems; be kind and everyone will try to help you.
• Chileans will know that you are a foreigner no matter how good your Spanish is. Don't get upset if they call you "gringo"-- all foreigners are called that.

 

在在纽约的最后一晚经历了严重失眠后，早上6点爬起来惊然发现手机服务被终止了，幸而helen如天降救星一样出现在了我门口，才帮我跌跌撞撞地赶到了机场。洒泪挥别，不免又儿女情长一场。

从迈阿密转机，不过当我从飞机上看到sin city的延绵海滩、酒店和游泳池时，告别美国的时候竟然没了一点感伤。为了省钱，我选了哥伦比亚的Avianca航空公司，飞机从迈阿密起飞后，5分钟后就出现了一种巨大的噪音，还时不时地来一下自由落体运动。我老人家心说：“Holy shit！这飞机该不会是年久失修了吧？” 手心里交替着出了一阵冷汗和热汗之后，就这样心惊胆战的开始了和南美的第一次亲密接触。

半夜4点半到了圣地亚哥，昏天黑地地睡了半天之后，发现从窗外可以眺望到Andes山脉，不由得有些恍如隔世。。。

 

 What is the sport on column 1 (from the left) and row1 (from top)? And column 1 row 6??

July 30, 2008 [link]

BEIJING — On a February day in 1989, a young woman walked into a show at the National Gallery of Art here, whipped out a pellet gun and fired two shots into a mirrored sculpture in an exhibition called “China/Avant-Garde.” Police officers swarmed into the museum. The show, the country’s first government-sponsored exhibition of experimental art, was shut down for days.

The woman, Xiao Lu, is an artist. The sculpture she fired on was her own, or rather a collaborative piece she had made with another artist, Tang Song, her boyfriend at the time. Why she did what she did was not immediately clear, but this didn’t matter.

She had set off a symbolic explosion.

The international press saw a rebellion story. China’s political and cultural vanguard claimed a hero. The government reacted as if attacked. The renowned art critic Li Xianting has described the incident as a precursor to the Tiananmen Square crackdown four months later. Whatever the truth, Ms. Xiao made the history books. She was a star.

She is the first and last Chinese female artist so far to achieve that status. Contemporary art in China is a man’s world. While the art market, all but nonexistent in 1989, has become a powerhouse industry and produced a pantheon of multimillionaire artist-celebrities, there are no women in that pantheon.

The new museums created to display contemporary art rarely give women solo shows. Among the hundreds of commercial galleries competing for attention in Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere, art by women is hard to find.

Yet the art is there, and it is some of the most innovative work around, even as visibility remains a problem. On a monthlong stay, I visited several women who live and work in and around Beijing and have important careers, although none of them top the auction charts, and few are represented by prestigious galleries. An alternative list of women doing strong but little-noticed work would be long.

If any woman qualifies as a power artist on the current male model, Lin Tianmiao probably comes closest. She was born in 1961, and like many artists of her generation who were raised during the Cultural Revolution but came of age professionally in its rocky aftermath, she had a difficult start.

In the mid-1990s, with money scarce, censors watchful and no gallery or market structure in place, she and her husband, the conceptual artist Wang Gongxin, lived and worked in cramped Beijing apartments where they mounted one-night shows that doubled as rent parties.

Ms. Lin’s work reflected these hand-to-mouth conditions. It was made from used household utensils — teapots, woks, scissors, vegetable choppers — that she laboriously wrapped in layers of cheap white cotton thread to create inventories of domestic life that looked both threatening and precious.

With the market boom, her career took off, and her work grew in scale and formal polish. Her floor-to-ceiling installations of self-portrait photographs anchored by braids of white yarn are fixtures in international shows. She and Mr. Wang live in one of Beijing’s many gated high-rises designed for urban professionals; their joint studio is an antiques-filled farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, where, with a small staff of seamstresses, Ms. Lin produces ghostly — and expensive-looking — soft sculptures swelling with egg- and breast-shaped forms in pristine white silk.

Critics have noted affinities in her art to the “women’s work” aesthetic of certain Western feminists. Ms. Lin, who lived in New York City during the late 1980s, would not disagree. And she acknowledges that women are treated like second-class citizens in China — like “inactive thinkers,” as she puts it. Yet she is cautious about applying the term feminist to herself or her work. Why? The concept is too Western. It is too vague. China is not ready for feminism. China has its own brand of feminism. You hear variations on these reasons often, just as you do in the West.

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中国策展人难成职业 (辗转转自豆瓣）
　　
　　www.ionly.com.cn 2008-07-24 11:50:24 来源：北京商报 李江 李岩/文 王晓莹/图
　　
　　　　很多人都听说过“策展人”，但真正了解它的人并不多。我们浅薄的认识和错误的解读一度让中国策展人的身份变得异常尴尬。当下，中国策展人 正处在重要的转型期。我们看到，艺术市场上，这个20世纪的“舶来品”正逐步趋于流行，大大小小的策展人相继活跃在国内乃至国际的舞台上。面对如此局面， 探究当下策展人的地位和生活境况，以此折射出中国策展人制度的一些问题就具有了深远的意义。
　　
　　　　策展人不是“收货郎”和“送货郎”
　　
　　　　“‘策展人’一词源于英文‘curator’，全称是‘展览策划人’，指在艺术展览活动中担任构思、组织、管理的专业人员。和以往展览组 织者进行常务化工作的最大区别就在于，他要有直接联系作者的‘触角’。”中国美术家协会雕塑委员会秘书长、著名策展人邹文告诉记者，“策展人不是对已经生 成作品的二次调用，而是要为了展览催生作品的诞生。”
　　
　　　　据了解，在中国，策展人的角色一直在变。最初，中国并没有策展人这个角色，所有展览都是艺术家自己组织的。之后，通过国际性大展的推 介，“策展人”概念从西方引入中国，于是策展人以中介人的身份出现在了中国的当代艺术界，起着特有的桥梁作用。邹文说：“以往常务性的展览组织者很难做到 ‘没看见作品就要推作品’的工作，而他们的工作也仅是把组品‘收集来’和‘送出去’。但策展人一经出现，却可以根据以往已有的作品推知一个人能否做出符合 展览要求的作品。因为他们了解艺术家风格的朝向、思维的方式、作品的形态。这时，他就可以不选作品而选人，通过完善的触觉和眼光达到策展目的。”
　　
　　　　据邹文讲，作为策展人，它是一个多样化的角色，绝不是先前那种形同“收货郎”和“送货郎”的角色。在一个展览中，一方面他要起组织协调的 作用，将一批艺术家临时组织起来，为艺术家们的创作提供技术上和物质上的便利条件。另一方面，他要承担一个艺术批评家的工作。通过他与艺术家们的交流和沟 通，使双方的艺术观点、创作方式等达成一个平衡点，从而确定创作和展览主题。此外，策展人承担的另外一个作用，是在艺术家与观众之间搭一座桥，将观众与艺 术家的作品有机地联系起来。比如在2003年中国北京国际美术双年展中，他举办“中国雕塑精品展”的同时，我们还发起了“报告雕塑”活动。人们拿起相机， 把自己看见的公共环境空间中的雕塑拍下来，经过自己的评判之后交给策展人，可以获得奖励。这极大地促进了雕塑界与社会的互动。
　　
　　　　对此，九立方美术馆负责人王立新也表示：“当策展人出现以后，他就要为一个作品展出行为后的效益最大化负责。因此，他要全面考虑如何扩大 展览的影响，如何增加作者的知名度，如何让展品有买家等问题。在艺术产业链中，他们应该在筹资、组织、主题、设计、布展、导览和公共推广、维护等多方面扮 演不可替代的角色。”
　　
　　　　策展人应保持独立影响力
　　
　　　　著名艺术评论家尧小锋认为，策展人是非常基础的工作，一个理论功底深厚、具有国际视野、活动能力强、人品好和人格独立的人才能做好这项工 作。策展人的工作主要是通过学术评判引导艺术品市场，其收入主要来源于收取策展费、写学术文章、学术著作和文艺评论的稿费。策展人最关键要保持中立的态 度，利用自身的专业优势，通过学术引导，把一些真正优秀的作品推向市场，供市场选择，以推动艺术市场的繁荣。
　　
　　　　中国很少有纯粹意义上的策展人。现在的一些策展人难以抵制诱惑，直接或间接参与到商业运作，其公正性和学术性很难保证。策展人只有保持中立态度，才能对学术的健康发展起关键作用。
　　
　　　　策展人选择艺术家，一般都选跟自己利益相关的艺术家，例如自己画廊或艺术机构代理的艺术家、关系比较好的学生、个人喜好的艺术家等，只有很少一部分从学术角度选择学术评价比较高的艺术家。
　　
　　　　尧小锋介绍道，国外策展人一般都是从商业利益考量，选择在学术评价上比较能够“站住脚”的艺术家，从而树立学术权威，给市场提供判断标 准。国内的策展人获得认可的就比较少，就是因为他们不能保持中立的态度。而一些比较有威信的策展人，随着市场的火爆，也逐渐变质了。在以前艺术市场没有这 么火爆的时候，策展人策展都比较专注于学术，举办了“85新潮”、“后89”等成功的展览，当时刚刚改革开放没多少年，有一些艺术家通过自己的作品表达了 许多新的观点，策展人通过敏锐判断，推出了这些作品，展览十分成功，造成的影响也十分深远。
　　
　　
　　第38届巴塞尔艺术博览会现场
　　
　　　　策展人越来越商业化
　　
　　　　尧小锋指出，目前国内的策展人越来越商业化，靠关系推艺术家。而一些学术策展人，为了保持他们的学术良心，基本上很少参与策展，而开始从 事其他艺术活动。例如著名策展人栗宪庭上世纪八九十年代曾在国内首屈一指，现在因为看不惯策展人市场化，所以很少参与策展，转而为一些年轻艺术家做一些铺 垫性工作。
　　
　　　　策展人一般兼有多重身份，有的本身就是画廊的老板，直接参与画廊运作或者占有画廊股份；有的办艺术类杂志，掌控话语权。这样的策展人可以 通过在画廊里运作或者通过杂志宣传跟自己合作关系比较紧密的艺术家，他们写出的学术文章，由于受利益关系的驱使，大多是溢美、吹捧之词。
　　
　　　　策展人“各立山头”，缺乏独立性、公正性，一般每个策展人都会负责运作几个艺术家，所以策展人之间会经常互相打压，也经常会出现“城头变换大王旗”、各领****三五天的情况，给艺术市场带来极大的混乱，造成一些青年艺术家盲目跟风，对学术发展极为不利。
　　
　　　　著名策展人费大为说，现在有很多展览在策划上仍然是很严谨的，但是也有一些策划人并不讲究这些，这一方面的原因和目前“快速消费”的时尚 有关，另一方面是和目前我们所能看到的一些策划人的水准有关。国内的展览系统尚无一个专业而独立的系统，因此策展人多是依附于商业机构的活动为主，也为一 些独立的展览工作，但是这些展览基本上没有机构的学术标准去衡量，在价值判断上具有很重的“江湖性质”。西方一些发达国家有一些相对专业的标准，策划人在 这样的环境下工作也有可能更加专业一些。 查看全文