作者：石涛,2014年4月。中文翻译：柴熙

如何衡量一幅画的市场价值？一幅画的市场价值不单一依赖于画的美丑，真实性亦或是稀缺性。画面的美感有助于提升市场价值，但是需要通过更基础的文化影响性来传递。一幅画的市场价值，由其文化影响性和稀缺性两种因素共同决定。今天我们来讨论文化影响性，明天我们将继续探讨稀缺性。

How much is a painting worth? The market value does not depend on how beautiful it is, or how authentic or rare it is.Beauty may contribute to market value, but only transitively through the more fundamental cultural significance.The market value depends on a necessary coincidence of two factors; cultural significance and scarcity. In this first article I discuss cultural significance. Later this week, I will continue with scarcity.

2014年4月5日香港苏富比拍卖会：张晓刚的《血缘：大家庭3号》以1210万美元刷新其个人世界拍卖纪录。The record-breaking $12.1M sale of Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline: Big Family No. 3 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on April 5, 2014.

如何衡量一幅画的价值？/ How much is a painting worth?

有时候，一幅画或是一件雕塑品可以卖出天价。是什么导致了一幅画可以卖出数百万美元，而另一幅却被丢弃在一个车库的儿童自行车旁？又是什么决定了一件艺术作品的市场价值？

Sometimes a painting or a sculpture sells for a surprising price. Why does one painting sell for millions of dollars while another sits discarded in a garage beside the children’s bicycles? What determines awork’s market value?

威廉·德·库宁《女人III》，1951-1953。2006年这幅画以1.37亿美金售于收藏家史蒂芬·A·科恩。创下了世界画作拍卖史上的第三高价。Willem De Kooning, Woman III, 1951-1953. In 2006 this sold for $137.5M to collector StevenA. Cohen. It is currently the third-most expensive painting ever sold.

“一件艺术品是否具有市场价值”和“一件作品是否在艺术上有价值”是不同的概念。市场价值和艺术价值是两个相关而又不同的概念。

The question “what is the market value of this work?” is different from the question “is this work artistically valuable?” Market value and artistic value are two different though connected things.

市场价值不是艺术价值/ Market value is not artistic value

列夫▪托尔斯泰对艺术价值的衡量标准是众多标准中比较有影响力的。在1987年发表的“什么是艺术”一文中他提到，决定一件艺术作品是否具有艺术价值取决于其是否能够传递真挚的情感并引发观赏者的情感共鸣。这种评估价值的方法将艺术品与演讲、广告、宣传以及那些容易点燃兽性的血腥、色情片区分开来。

Leo Tolstoy’s ideas on artistic value are among the more influential. In “What is Art?” (1897) he argues that a work has artistic value if it communicates sincere feeling and unites people in common feeling. This value measure differentiates art from other forms of speech, and also advertising, propaganda, and stuff that fires the more base feelings like gore or porn.

艺术价值的衡量方式决定艺术周期 / Artistic value measures define artistic periods

欧仁·德拉克罗瓦：《萨丹纳帕路斯之死》，1827年。《萨丹纳帕路斯之死》是浪漫主义时期名画之一，浪漫主义时期重在表现感觉和激情。Eugène Delacroix, Death of Sardanapalus, 1827. This is a famous painting of the Romantic period. The Romantic period valued feeling and intense emotion.

托尔斯泰对于艺术价值的衡量标准只是众多标准中的一个。艺术价值的衡量标准随着时间的推移发生着改变。艺术价值取决于艺术周期，而艺术周期由艺术品自身独特 的价值来定义。当代艺术价值的体现与浪漫主义时期和古典主义时期的艺术价值体现有所不同。在艺术价值的体现方面：有些时期更注重艺术品的真实性而非古典 美；有些时期则将艺术家真实情感的表露放在首位。一个时期艺术价值的衡量标准受到众多因素的影响。这些因素包含经济、技术、历史、文化、宗教等。艺术周期 由不同的艺术价值衡量标准决定。艺术价值的衡量标准决定了不同的艺术周期。

Tolstoy’s measure of artistic value is just one of many possible measures. Measures of artistic value change with the times. An artistic period is defined by its unique value measure. Artistic value in the romantic period is different from artistic value in the classical period and that is different from artistic value today. One period may value truth over classical beauty while another may put the most weight on the sincerity of the artist’s voice. A period’s artistic value measure is influenced by a wide number of factors. These factors include economics, technology, history, culture, and religion. Periods are just different artistic value measures. Value measures define periods.

与艺术价值不同，市场价值决定了一件艺术品在市场上的现金交换价值。简单来讲，我们期望消费者花多少钱来购买这件艺术品？从宏观上来看，市场价值和艺术价值彼此相互渗透，相辅相成。

In contrast with artistic value, the market value tells us the work’s exchange value in cash. How much would we expect someone to pay to purchase the work? Market value and artistic value are different but connected.

决定市场价值的两种因素 / Two factors decide market value

保罗·塞尚《玩纸牌的人》1892-1893.这幅油画在2011年以2亿5千900万美金售于卡塔尔。这幅油画创下了油画拍卖史上最高价。Paul Cézanne,The Card Players, 1892-1893. It was sold in 2011 for $259M to the State of Qatar. It currently ranks as the most expensive painting ever sold.

一件艺术品的市场价值由两种因素决定。第一，艺术品的文化影响性。第二，艺术品的稀缺性。这两种因素都不是外部因素。操纵其来影响艺术品的市场价值是艺术品世界进程的一部分。很多人依赖于此过程来维持生计。

There are two factors that determine an art work’s market value. Firstly, the cultural significance of the work, and secondly, its scarcity. These two factors are not exogenous variables. Manipulating them to influence market value is part of the art world process. Many people’s livelihoods depend on this process.

一个人站立在巴尼特·纽曼的《安娜的光》（1968）面前。2013年，这幅画以1.057亿美金私下成交。在世界画作成交中排名第17位。A man standing in front of Barnett Newman's Anna's Light (1968). In 2013, this was sold privately for $105.7M. Currently, this ranks as the 17th most expensive painting sold.

艺术品的属性，比如它的艺术性能否影响作品的市场价值，取决于这个属性是否为其文化传承性带来影响。对于市场价值的影响也因为其文化传承性而传递下去，这种影响会因为不同艺术时期艺术价值的衡量方法不同而被减弱。就上图所展现的巴尼特·纽曼之作《安娜之光》而言，如果在古希腊或者19世纪的伦敦，它不会被卖到1.057亿美金。不同的艺术时期有不同的艺术价值观，这些不同的价值观会缓和文化的传承性。

Whether or not a property of a work, such as its beauty,influences market value depends on how that property first influences the work's cultural significance. The influence on market value is transitive through cultural significance, and that connection is moderated by the period's artistic value measure. Consider Barnett Newman'sAnna's Light pictured above. It would likely not have sold for the equivalent of $105.7M in Ancient Greece or 19th century London. Those were different artistic periods with different artistic values, and those different values would have moderated a much lesser cultural significance.

然而，相信艺术品仅仅通过满足艺术价值来获得文化影响性，是一个非常天真的行为。

However, it would be naïve to believe that works achieve cultural significance based solely on how well they meet the artistic values of the time.

制造文化影响性 / Manufacturing cultural significance

物质的文化影响可以在混沌、偶然的过程中自然而然产生，但是这种情况是非常罕见的。更普遍的情况是，文化影响产生于系统的规划，熟练的沟通和大量的工作。艺术世界通过评论渠道散布信息来制造文化影响性。评论渠道通常是二阶渠道。这种二阶渠道主要散布有关作品的信息而非将作品本身呈现给大众。对比来说，一阶渠道主要是呈现艺术品本身。通过评论渠道，艺术品的文化影响性得以更好地传播。

A work's cultural significance can come chaotically and accidentally with no effort, but this is rare and unlikely. More often, cultural significance is manufactured through systematic planning, lots of work, and skilled communication. To manufacture cultural significance the art world distributes information via critical channels. Critical channels are typically second-order channels. Second-order means the channels do not distribute works but rather information about works. In contrast, a first-order channel is a channel for distributing the work itself. Cultural significance is manufactured using critical channels.

怀特·本杰明（德国，1892 - 1940）是一位作家和文学评论家。他对美学理论研究有着不朽的贡献。他的作品在艺术和文学理论研究中占有重要的地位。Walter Benjamin (German, 1892 - 1940) was a literary critic and essayist. He made enduring contributions to aesthetic theory. Commenting on theories of art and literature, his work is a higher-order channel.

如果说艺术品是信息，那么二阶渠道就是汇集信息的信息流。当然也存在三阶渠道。比如有关艺术评论的哲学作品。通过这个例子，我们清楚地看到渠道的发展使得划分独特的渠道阶层变得困难。所以通常来讲，我们把渠道划分为一阶和多阶，多阶包括二阶及以上。随着渠道阶层的增加，渠道变得越来越抽象和学术。

Works are information so a second-order channel is a stream of information about information. There can even be third-order channels. An example is a philosophical work about art criticism. From this example it’s clear that cycles can develop making it impossible to uniquely count the levels. So in general we differentiate between first-order and higher-order channels of order two or higher. The higher the order the more academic and abstract the channel becomes as it gets farther away from first-order work.

杰克逊·波洛克《第五号》，1948。 2006年这件作品以1.4亿美元的价格售于收藏家大卫·马丁内斯。创下了世界拍卖史上的第二高价。评论家克莱门特·格林伯格的理论和评价对波洛克的成功起到了重要的作用。Jackson Pollock,No. 5, 1948. In 2006 this sold for $US140M to collector David Martinez. It is currently the second-most expensive painting ever sold.The writing and theories of critic Clement Greenberg were influential in Pollock's success.

通过使用超过两个阶层的评论渠道，作品得以更准确的表达。改变艺术价值的衡量方式可以对艺术品的市场价值造成重大影响。一个很好的例子就是克莱门特·格林伯格的评判以及这种批判是怎样创造了抽象表现主义。

Critical channels can be of order higher than two. Even though these are often about works specifically, they can have a massive influence on market value by shifting the artistic value measure. An example of this is Clement Greenberg's criticism and how that manufactured the emergence of abstract expressionism.

评论的渠道有很多。比如学术界，博物馆，媒体，大众评审和自我推销。在竞争激烈的艺术市场中，人们通过相同的评论渠道去实现更好的艺术传承。随着时间的推移和技术的变革，新的渠道应运而生，不同渠道的相对重要性也随之不断变化。

There are many different critical channels. Some examples include academia, museums, the media, public critics, and self-promotion. The art system is a competitive world and everyone competes for significance using the same critical channels. Over time and with technological change, new channels emerge and the relative importance of the different channels has waxed and waned over time.

促销渠道也是高阶渠道，但是其不同于评论渠道。评论渠道具有文化影响性，然而促销渠道只具有经济价值。促销渠道可以帮助销售作品并传播时间和地点的信息，但是其对于文化的影响不大。就像没有人会认真对待“虚荣”画廊。同样地，艺术论坛杂志上付费的广告也不会被人们作为文化影响性的代表。

Promotional channels also higher-order channels, but they differ from critical channels. Critical channels carry the signal of cultural significance while promotional channels only represent economic power. Promotional channels can help sell work and spread information about time and place events, but they have much less of a lasting impact on culture. Nobody in the art world takes vanity galleries seriously. Similarly, a paid advertisement in Artforum magazine isn't something anyone would consider representative of cultural significance.

曼哈顿惠特尼美国艺术博物馆。惠特尼美国艺术博物馆是一个非常有影响力的评论渠道。The Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan. The Whitney is an influential critical channel.

博物馆和画廊是两个完全不同的渠道。它们的不同不在于建筑的大小，也不在于它们是公共的或是私人的。画廊和博物馆既可以是公共的，也可以是私有的。同样的，画廊和博物馆的本质不在于是否拥有有形建筑，有些画廊或博物馆甚至根本不存在建筑。它们本质的不同在于博物馆是一个二阶渠道，而画廊是一个一阶渠道。博物馆将作品信息分类，并制造出其文化影响性，而画廊只是将作品本身分类。博物馆是彰显文化重要性的重要渠道。而画廊更多地发挥了经济功能而非制造文化影响性。

Museums and galleries are two very difference kinds of channels. The difference is not in the size of the building or whether the funding is public or private.A gallery can be public or private and so can a museum.Similarly, the essence of both a gallery and a museum is not it's building. Some of them don't even have buildings.The essential difference between a gallery and a museum is that a museum is a critical channel while a gallery is a first-order channel. A museum distributes information about works — manufacturing cultural significance — while a gallery distributes the works themselves. Museums are a crucial channel for manufacturing cultural significance. Galleries on the other hand perform an important economic function but do not manufacture cultural significance.

"虚荣"展览是博物馆的自杀行为 / Vanity exhibitions are suicide for a museum

现在北京的一些机构称自己为博物馆同时接受"虚荣"展览。这些机构被称为"虚荣"展馆。"虚荣"展览指的是艺术家或代表艺术家的机构付款展出艺术家自己的作品。展览的目的在于推销艺术家或其作品。这些机构其实应该被称作画廊。

Today in Beijing some institutions that call themselves museums will accept vanity shows. Really these institutions are what is called a "vanity gallery".A vanity show is a show put on for an artist that is paid for by the artist or an agent representing the artist. The purpose is to promote the artist and the artist’s work. This is really a museum acting as a gallery.

以销售为目的的评论渠道会毁坏其自身。想象如果一个会计事务所打算将其审计结果进行出售。为了实现这个不道德甚至违法的行为，需要违背会计事务所的长期利益。会计事务所的的价值在于其真实的报告。如果他们不再提供真实的报告，而被外界力量所左右，那么会计事务所提供的服务就失去了价值。

Critical channels for sale will destroy themselves. Just imagine if an accounting firm put its audit results up for sale. In addition to being immoral and possibly illegal, this runs against the long-term interests of the accounting firm. The value of an accounting firm is that it verifies and reports the truth. If what they provide is no longer the truth, but modified by some external force, then the accounting firm’s service no longer has value.

这对博物馆来说是一样的道理。博物馆的实质是文化的影响性。如果整个系统不再相信其真实性，博物馆就会失去其在系统中的价值和作用。

It’s the same for a museum. The museum’s truth is cultural significance. If the system no longer trusts it to report that truth then the museum has lost its value and role in the system.

为什么艺术世界不能摆脱物质实体？/ Why is the art world wedded to the physical object?

杜尚的作品《泉》的创作灵感来源于小便池。这件充满争议的作品引发了有关艺术的本质和画廊的作用的思考。摄影：阿尔弗雷德·斯蒂格里茨，纽约市，1917年。Duchamp's "Fountain" is a urinal turned on its side. This work was controversial and provoked fundamental questions about both the nature of art and the role of galleries. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz. New York City, 1917.

评价渠道需要小心地维护自身声誉，但是艺术家和画廊也需要谨慎使用这些评价渠道。评论渠道面临的最大挑战不是对艺术家的诽谤或是过度曝光。就像安迪·沃霍尔所说，公共媒体可以滥用作品而不必担心牺牲作品的完整性和真实性。诚然，评论渠道面临的最大问题是如何规避技术问题和维护稀缺性，而非简单的避免无效信息以及时间和金钱的浪费。作品的高度电子化使其可以轻易的从网络上获得，从而使作品无法维持较高的市场价值。评论渠道的滥用会损害稀缺性并降低市场价值。

Critical channels need to carefully protect their own reputations, but artists and galleries also need to be careful how they use these critical channels. The biggest risk is not infamy or overexposure. Andy Warhol showed that popular media can be used promiscuously without necessarily compromising the integrity or sincerity of the work. The biggest risk is also not being ineffective and wasting money or time. Rather, the biggest risk comes from technology and how it can eliminate scarcity. Works are increasingly digitized, but a digital work will not be able to sustain a high market value if it’s available in perfect form on the internet. Critical channels used without care may undermine scarcity and therefore damage market value.

安迪·沃霍尔以大众媒体渠道为内容同时使用其来推销他的作品。鲍勃·迪伦在沃霍尔的工厂里拿着安迪·沃霍尔的作品《双面猫王》，纽约市，1965年。Andy Warhol mastered using popular media channels both as content and to promote his work. Bob Dylan holding a copy of Andy Warhol's Double Elvis. At Warhol's Factory, NYC, 1965.

下一篇文章将继续谈论有关稀缺性的话题。

The next article will continue this discussion looking at the role of scarcity.