Luke Syson: How I learned to stop worrying and love "useless" art
卢克·赛森: 我如何停止担忧并且爱上“无用”的艺术
As a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Luke Syson accesses the richness of European history through sculpture. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
what an icon looked like.
paintings, which I was then.
in London for the very first time.
the absolute throes of organizing.
material world into a spiritual world.
the job of the painter
and invisible in the universe.
somehow he achieves it.
more perfect than our own.
what I believed an icon was.
and decorative arts, here at the Met.
欧洲雕塑与装饰艺术系别。
at very peculiar times of the day --
the Leonardo show was due to open
and decorative arts looked like,
with which I was so already familiar.
I better tour the galleries.
in the Italian Renaissance.
步行穿过这些画廊。
understood silliness to be.
against the use of gold,
of flowers everywhere. (Laughter)
anything that you actually see in nature,
either as a princess or a fairy.
these golden tusks and so on.
march across the Serengeti.
was happening as well.
and my liberal left friends in London
伦敦的自由主义左派朋友
Jean-Claude Duplessis,
on looking at these vases.
并继续研究这些花瓶。
on a through route in the Met.
博物馆的必经之路上。
does dance in its own way.
color and gilding, and the sculptural surface,
与雕塑表面之间的结合,
in order to arrive at this.
才能达到这个水准。
were originally candle holders.
were candles on either side.
a firework went off in my brain.
我脑海中已经有了烟火盛放的画面。
root as the word 'fantasy.'
operas of the time -- set in the Orient.
来自东方的作品,
opium-induced visions of pink elephants,
粉色大象的幻觉,
values rather than aristocratic ones.
还不如说是资产阶级的胜利。
sequestration of imagination.
television in the corner of the room.
represented in people's lives.
a high building nowadays there.
Gherkin, the Shard, the Walkie Talkie --
to happen in our daily lives.
I was looking up a reference.
in the middle of the 19th century.
斯塔福郡塑像(Staffordshire figure)。
playing Shakespeare's Richard III.
饰演莎士比亚的理查三世的场景。
elevated piece of porcelain.
pink elephant vase allowed me to do so.
part of a journey for me every day,
我人生旅程的一部分,
finding them for yourselves,
是在寻找它们的时候
in your imaginative lives.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Luke Syson - CuratorAs a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Luke Syson accesses the richness of European history through sculpture.
Why you should listen
Luke Syson joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012 as the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Curator in Charge of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. This year, he co-curated the small but innovative exhibition "Plain or Fancy? Restraint and Exuberance in the Decorative Arts." Before joining the Met Syson was Curator of Italian Painting before 1500 and Head of Research at the National Gallery, London. While at the National Gallery, he was curator of the exhibition "Renaissance Siena: Art for a City," and in 2011 he organized the groundbreaking "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan."
Syson was also one of the curators who organized the acclaimed Enlightenment Gallery at The British Museum and was part of the team that planned the new galleries for Medieval and Renaissance Art at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Luke Syson | Speaker | TED.com