SHANGHAI —The conceptual artist Chen Zhen was 25 when he learned that he had a rare form of anemia¹ and might have only five years to live. It was the early 1980s, and China was beginning to loosen travel restrictions² on its citizens, so in 1986 Mr. Chen left his parents and his hometown of Shanghai and headed to Paris, where he studied art and worked as a sidewalk portrait artist.

上海——概念艺术家陈箴在25岁时得知自己患有一种罕见的贫血症，也许只能再活五年。当时是20世纪80年代初，中国开始放松对国民的旅行限制，所以1986年，陈箴离开父母和故乡上海，前往巴黎，在那里学习艺术，成了一名街头肖像艺术家。

Mr. Chen ultimately died in the French capital in 2000, of cancer, but by that time he had achieved global recognition for his large-scale sculptures and installations, which explored themes of travel, health and homeland. His work had been in included in several international exhibitions, and he had been the subject of more the 30 solo shows in Europe, the United States and Asia.

2000年，陈箴最终因癌症在巴黎去世，不过那时他已凭借大型雕塑和装置作品获得全球认可。他的作品探讨旅行、健康和故乡等主题。多个国际展览收入他的作品，欧洲、美国和亚洲已举办30多场关于他的个展。

Now, Shanghai is celebrating its local son with a show at the Rockbund Art Museum through Oct. 7 — “Chen Zhen: Without going to New York and Paris, life could be internationalized.” It is only the second solo exhibition of Mr. Chen’s works in the city where he was born in 1955. The first was in 2006 at the Shanghai Art Museum.

陈箴1955年生于上海。现在，上海外滩美术馆正通过一场展览来纪念这位上海之子——“陈箴：不用去纽约巴黎，生活同样国际化”，展览持续至10月7日。这只是这座城市为他举办的第二场个人作品展。第一场是2006年在上海美术馆举办的。

“I think the whole Chinese art community feels like we owe him a comprehensive project,” said Liu Yingjiu, deputy director of the Rockbund. “He was so respected in the art community. We thought it was time to make another exhibit to show that his thoughts and his works still deeply resonate with our times.”

“我认为，整个中国艺术界欠他一个全面回顾展，”上海外滩美术馆副馆长刘迎九说，“他在艺术界很受尊敬。我们认为现在应该再举办一场展览，来展示他的思想和作品。直至今日，他的思想和作品仍与我们的时代深刻共鸣。”

Hou Hanru, the curator of the show and the artistic³ director of the Maxxi, Italy’s national museum for contemporary art in Rome, said: “Art and being an artist was almost a kind of therapy for Chen Zhen, not just physically⁴ but psychologically and spiritually.

这场展览的策展人是罗马的意大利当代艺术博物馆Maxxi的艺术总监侯瀚如。他说，“对陈箴来说，艺术和做艺术家几乎是一种治疗方法，不只是对身体，而且是对心理和精神。”

“For 20 years, he struggled for survival. But his health constraints⁵ and his traveling also made it possible for him to feel like he was in a state of constant discovery, which allowed him to develop more critical thinking on art and why he wanted to be an artist.”

“有20年时间，他都在为生存而挣扎。但是健康状况的局限和旅行也让他能够不断发现，能够对艺术以及他为什么想成为艺术家进行更具批判性的思考。”

In mounting the show, Mr. Hou worked closely with Xu Min, Mr. Chen’s widow and longtime collaborator⁶, to put together a condensed survey of the artist’s works, with pieces chosen to highlight his interests: the relationship between humans, nature and objects; Eastern and Western medical traditions; and urban planning and architecture.

组织展览时，侯瀚如与陈箴的遗孀兼长期合作者徐敏密切合作。他们对这位艺术家的作品进行研究，精选出能突显他兴趣的作品：人类、自然和物体之间的关系；东西方的医学传统；城市规划和建筑。

The show also marks the fifth anniversary of the Rockbund Art Museum, one of several private contemporary art institutions that have emerged in Shanghai. The 11 works are spread over five floors of the renovated⁷ Art Deco building, which opened in 1932 as the headquarters of the Royal Asiatic Society.

这场展览也是上海外滩美术馆的五周年庆祝活动之一。该美术馆是上海的几个私立当代艺术机构之一，位于一个修复后的艺术装饰风格的建筑里。该建筑始于1932年，最初是皇家亚洲学会(Royal Asiatic Society)的总部所在地。展出的11件作品分布在该建筑的五层楼里。

The exhibition begins on the second floor with a re-creation of one of Mr. Chen’s early works, a large-scale installation called “Purification Room.” Visitors are confronted with what he once called a sort of “archaeology⁸ of the future”: Scattered⁹ through the room are objects like furniture, a shopping cart, a desktop¹⁰ computer and a scooter. Everything — the objects, the floor, the walls — is bathed or “purified” in beige-colored mud, reminiscent of a practice in Chinese folk medicine. The visual effect is what Mr. Chen termed a “monochrome tomb.”

展览始于二层，陈箴的早期大型装置作品《净化室》在这里得以复原。呈现在观众们面前的是一种“未来考古学”（陈箴的话）：房间里散置着很多物品，比如家具、购物车、台式电脑和踏板车。所有的东西，包括那些物品、地板和墙壁，都在黄泥中浸泡过或者说“净化”过，让人想起了中国民间医学的一种疗法。陈箴把它的视觉效果称为“单色坟墓”。

“When Chen Zhen arrived in France in the ’80s, he found a society that unlike China was already very much driven by the capitalist economic system,” said Mr. Hou, who along with Mr. Chen was closely associated in the 1990s with a circle of Chinese artists in Paris that included Huang Yong Ping and Yan Pei-Ming. “This was his way of contributing to the intellectual critique in France of consumerism, by introducing this kind of romantic idea, somewhat Chinese in a way, of purifying the culture that had been polluted by money and consumerist values.”

“80年代，陈箴到法国时，看到了一个与中国不同的社会，它在很大程度上已经是以资本主义经济体系为动力，”侯瀚如说。20世纪90年代，他和陈箴一样，与巴黎的中国艺术家圈子关系密切，那个圈子里还有黄永砯和严培明。“这是他批评法国消费主义的方式——以这种有点中式的浪漫概念来净化被金钱和消费主义价值观污染的文化。”

In subsequent galleries, the focus of the show turns to Mr. Chen’s reflections on the body and his concerns with the city and urban development — specifically his connection to Shanghai. For “Daily Incantations” (1996), he created what resembles a bianzhong, an ancient Chinese musical instrument with bronze bells, except wooden chamber¹¹ pots replace the typical graduated arrangement of bells. A large jumble¹² of old radios, televisions and telephones is placed at the center of the structure, while the sound of the daily ritualistic cleaning of night stools, routinely heard on the streets of Shanghai during Mr. Chen’s childhood, emanates¹³ from the suspended chamber pots.

接下来的几个展厅把重点转向陈箴对身体的反思以及他对城市和城市发展的忧虑，特别是他与上海的关系。《日咒》(1996)是模仿中国古代乐器编钟，不过那些分层排列的铜钟被木制夜壶代替。中央放置着一大堆乱七八糟的旧收音机、旧电视机和旧电话，悬挂的夜壶中发出清洗马桶的声音——那是陈箴童年时每天在上海街上都能听到的声音。

In a conversation about the work published on his website, Mr. Chen spoke¹⁴ about the intertwining of daily repetition and modernization¹⁵.

陈箴的网站上发布了一段关于自己作品的对话，他在其中提到日常重复行为和现代化之间的交融。

“‘Daily Incantations’ is the result of my first home visit to Shanghai after eight years of overseas life,” he said. “Nobody gave me an invitation to exhibit at the time. Only, I saw once again those lovely Shanghai women cleaning night stools by the street side in early mornings, and they did this in the shadow of the Shanghai Hilton Hotel!”

“《日咒》是我在国外生活八年之后第一次回上海的产物，”他说，“当时没人邀请我办展览。不过，我再次看到那些可爱的上海女人清晨在街边清洗马桶，而不远处就是上海希尔顿酒店。”

He added: “That was very similar in nature to the ‘daily readings of the Red Book’ during the Cultural Revolution: an apathetically¹⁶ mechanic ‘daily repetition.”’

他补充说：“从本质上讲，那很像‘文革’期间‘每天读毛主席语录’，只是无动于衷的机械重复。”

Sharing a floor with this sculptural installation is “Untitled Steamships¹⁷” (2015), a work created for the exhibition by the museum, under Ms. Xu’s supervision¹⁸, and based on detailed¹⁹ sketches²⁰ by Mr. Chen and on Ms. Xu’s conversations with him. Given the recent news spotlight²¹ on China’s currency policy, the piece could hardly seem more timely. It consists of two wooden boats that were built with their bows intertwined, like conjoined twins. One is carrying goods labeled “Made in China” while the other says “Western Products,” in what can be seen on the simplest level as a comment on the interconnectedness of global markets.

与这个雕塑装置作品处在同一楼层的还有《无题》(2015)，这件作品是该美术馆在徐敏的指导下为这次展览创作的，以陈箴画的详细草图以及他和徐敏的讨论内容为基础。鉴于最近的新闻都在关注中国的货币政策，这件作品似乎非常应景。它由两条小木船组成，船头交织在一起，像连体婴儿。一条船的货物上写着“中国制造”，另一条船上写着“西方产品”。从最简单的层次讲，它是在阐释全球市场的互联性。

The top two floors of the exhibition are dedicated²² to Mr. Chen’s various research projects. On display on the upper floor of the museum cafe are photographs from a project undertaken by the artist on one of his visits back to Shanghai in the 1990s. Taken with the aim of documenting the evolution of the city, the photographs show a Shanghai just beginning to come into its own as a modern, outward-facing city. They also reveal Mr. Chen’s sense of humor.

最上面的两层展示的是陈箴的各种研究项目。最上层咖啡馆里展示的是这位艺术家在90年代有一次回上海访问时拍摄的照片。这个项目的目的是记录这座城市的发展，当时的上海刚开始变成一个面向外部世界的现代城市。那些照片还展现了陈箴的幽默感。

In one photo, for example, he pictures a Shanghai subway advertisement for a local real estate²³ development. “Without going to New York or Paris, the life could be internationalized,” the sign reads.

比如，其中一张照片拍的是上海地铁里一个地产开发项目的广告。广告词是：“不用去纽约巴黎，生活同样国际化。”

“When I saw the photo, I thought it would make the perfect title for the show because it really tells you what the Chinese dream is, then and now,” Mr. Hou said. “It raises an essential question about what the real image of a modern society is and how people project themselves onto it.”

“看到那张照片时，我心想，它很适合做这次展览的标题，因为它真的说出了从那时到现在的中国梦，”侯瀚如说，“它提出了一个关键问题：现代社会的真实形象是怎样的，人们又是怎样看待自己在其中的境况的。”

While Mr. Chen’s concern with the body and the self is reflected throughout the show, perhaps the most intimate expression of his thoughts is revealed in a selection of portraits and passages from a diary he kept during a six-month residency with a Shaker community in Maine in 1997.

虽然陈箴对身体和自我的忧虑反映在整场展览中，但他最私密的想法也许体现在那些精选的肖像画和日记节选中。那本日记是1997年他和一个震颤派(Shaker)团体在缅因州进行为期六个月的驻地创作时写的。

“Today I was thinking about how maybe the people in the art crowd are sick somehow, or crazy,” he wrote in Chinese in one passage. “We have countless²⁴ connections to money and power, but we are often enslaved by them. We are the nonsmokers in a smoky room.

“今天，我在想，也许艺术界的人不知为何都有点病态或疯狂，”在其中一段里，他用中文写道，“我们与金钱和权力有着千丝万缕的联系，但我们经常被它们束缚。我们是吸烟室里不吸烟的人。”

“Then again, the artists are the most powerful, because we participate in the ‘game,’ we know the rules and we know how to overcome them. But we have to be crazy or psychotic. The sick ones often have the clearest minds.”

“所以我再次觉得，艺术家是最有力量的，因为我们参与‘游戏’，我们知道规则，也知道如何超越规则。但是我们必须疯狂或精神错乱。疯狂的人往往最清醒。”