原文：The grey walls of China: Chinese officials help to cultivate a local graffiti scene
In the mid-1990s outlines of bulbous heads, spray-painted with a single swipe, began to appear on Beijing’s walls. Next to them was written “ak47”. This tag, as graffitied signatures are known, belonged to Zhang Dali, an art student who had spent time in Italy and discovered graffiti culture there. On his return to China, swathes of its cities were being razed to make way for development. Workers were daubing the character chai, meaning “demolish”, on buildings due to be torn down. Mr Zhang took his cans to the same walls in protest at this often brutal upheaval.
上世纪 90 年代中期，一个个用喷漆轻轻一扫、涂描出的「大脑袋」开始出现在北京的各种墙上，旁边写着「ak47」。这个符号是张大力涂鸦所用的签名。他是一位曾在意大利接触到涂鸦文化的艺术专业学生。当他从意大利回国的时候，急速发展的城市正在进行大规模拆迁。工人们正把大大的「拆」字画在即将被夷平的房屋墙面上。张大力则将他喷罐中的涂漆射向同样的墙壁，以抗议这种粗暴的改变。
Mr Zhang is widely regarded as China’s first modern graffiti artist. More recent ones are influenced by skateboarding culture or rap music. The art form is still in its infancy in China—it is far less commonly seen than in the West. But Liu Yuansheng, coauthor of “Beijing Graffiti”, published in 2020, reckons the number of practitioners in the capital has at times swelled to 200.
张大力被看作是中国第一个现代涂鸦艺术家。近些年的涂鸦艺术家则更多受到滑板文化或说唱音乐的影响。这种艺术形式在中国仍处于发展初期——比起西方，涂鸦在中国少见得多。不过刘苑生估算出北京的涂鸦画家已增至 200 人。他是出版于 2020 年的摄影画册《北京涂鸦》的合著者。
Cities are riddled with cctv cameras and teeming with law-enforcement officers. But it is not the threat of punishment that deters people from becoming graffiti artists. Doodlers rarely face more than a fine of 500 yuan ($80) and a day in police custody. Those caught tagging often get away with a promise to paint over their work. Sometimes the public defends such art. Residents in the central city of Wuhan called on officers to remove advertisements that had been pasted over a work by Rui Huang, a local artist. They felt that the ads had defaced his graffiti.
中国的城市里充斥着监控摄像头和执法人员。但阻止人们成为涂鸦艺术家的并不是对被惩罚的恐惧。这些涂鸦画家很少面临超过 500 元的罚款和超过一天的拘留。那些因为涂鸦被逮到的人通常只要承诺把自己的作品涂抹掉，便不会遭受其他惩罚。有时候一些民众也会保卫这种艺术。武汉城中心的居民就呼吁政府移除掉那些粘贴在当地艺术家黄睿涂鸦作品上的广告。他们觉得这些「牛皮癣」破坏了他的涂鸦。
It may simply be that few people even consider spraying walls without permission. There is no tradition of guerrilla art used by criminal gangs to mark their territory or by protesters to attack the government. Mr Zhang’s poke at developers was a rare kind of dissent. The ruins gave him cover—officials turned a blind eye, knowing his works would soon be bulldozed.
真正的原因仅仅是：很少有人会在没有官方允许的情况下在墙上涂鸦。在中国，并没有将这种草根艺术用于黑社会标记领地或抗议政府的传统。张大力对开发商的嘲弄已经是一种少见的异议。这些残垣断壁给了他一种保护——政府知道他的作品不久就会被推土机铲平，故而对其睁一只眼闭一只眼。
China does have a history of using walls to express dissent in written form, however. A famous example occurred during the Democracy Wall movement of 1978-79 when people flocked to the brick wall of a bus station in Beijing to put up “big-character posters” demanding greater political freedom. A constitutional right to put up such posters was scrapped in 1980. These days mural self-expression rarely goes beyond unauthorised “throwies”, or two tone tags in bubble-like writing, which can be seen on walls in Beijing.
无论如何，中国的确也有通过在墙上写字来表达异议的历史。一个著名的例子发生在 1978 - 1979 年间的民主墙运动，当时人们成群结队地来到一处公交站的砖墙前，贴上大字报来争取更多的政治自由。1980 年，张贴大字报的公民权利被废除了。如今，这些墙上的自我表达大都是经过官方批准的「throwies」（一种涂鸦风格）或双色气泡状文字，正如我们常在北京墙壁上所见的那样。
Local governments sometimes even sponsor street art, regarding it as a sign of modernisation. In the run-up to the Olympic games that were held in Beijing in 2008, officials in the capital encouraged artists to paint a 300-metre-long “graffiti wall”. Designs were vetted first. A street in the southwestern city of Chongqing is home to one of the world’s largest graffiti projects (pictured). It was created, with official approval, by 800 painters. This year Wuhan paid local crews to draw graffiti on a tram and several public buses.
地方政府有时甚至会资助街头艺术，并将其看作是现代化的标志。在 08 北京奥运举办的前夕，首都的官员鼓励艺术家们画了一堵长达 300 米的「涂鸦墙」。当然事先要对设计进行审查。重庆的一条街上拥有世界上最大的涂鸦之一。在官方的许可下，有 800 位涂鸦画家参与进来。今年，武汉政府花钱请了当地的画家在一辆有轨电车和一些公交上进行涂鸦。
There are others, however, who barely qualify as artists who scribble on walls. A Chinese citizen in Sydney, who goes by the name Lil Quacky, collects graffiti in an Instagram account called “chinesegraffiti hub” (the app is blocked in China). Quacky began the project last year after noticing that someone had rewritten a roadside slogan in China that had urged people to carry away their rubbish. It had been changed to “Carry away your love.” Most graffiti submitted to Quacky consists of untidy spray painted sentences. “Are they enough to shock passers-by, to make them think, to make them stay for a while?” are Quacky’s criteria for posting them online. Hundreds of examples have passed the test.
还有一些在墙上随意写字的人，严格来说算不上艺术家。Lil Quacky 是一位在悉尼的中国人，他创建了一个用于收集涂鸦的 Instagram 的账号：「chinesegraffiti hub」。Quacky 去年留意到在中国有人重写了路边敦促人们带走垃圾的标语，将其改成了「带走你的爱」。他受此启发，开始了运营起这个账号。许多提交给 Quacky 的涂鸦都包含一些涂绘得颇为粗糙的句子。「涂鸦能否足够打动路人，促使他们思考，并让他们停留一会儿？」这是 Quacky 决定是否要将其发布到网上的标准。已经有数百个涂鸦通过了他的筛选。
