让大都会艺术博物馆重焕生机的人

    巴黎的卢浮宫（The Louvre）内挂着一套名为《狩猎的马克西米连》（The Hunts of Maximillion）的织锦名作。这些画作令人难以置信地展现出布鲁塞尔在大约16世纪20年代左右的真实景象。那是一个你可以步入的世界，逼真程度犹如一部IMAX电影。我记得我是在大约20年前看到这些画的，当时我就想：“天啊，这幅画如此直接地再现了过去，体现了它所有的复杂性、美感和暴力！”

    织锦由此成为我的挚爱。现在每天都有馆长来我的办公室，他们是一群很有趣的人。其中一些人非常固执，有时候的情形就像放养一群众口难调的猫。但他们每个人都有自己的爱好。我的工作就是维系、支持他们的愿景。

    《财富》：你在博物馆内有没有一个专门用来思考问题的地方？

    托马斯•坎贝尔：我时常乘坐电梯从我的办公室下到大厅正上方的阳台上。我喜欢下到阳台上，观察游客们进入博物馆的场景。有时我只是随意四处走走，东南西北，任由我的双脚带我去馆内的任何地方。知道吗？我已经在这里呆了16年了，这是一个总能发现新鲜事的地方。

    译者：任文科

    There's one great set of tapestries called "The Hunts of Maximillion" at The Louvre in Paris. They showed incredibly realistic scenes in Brussels from around the 1520s. It's a world you could walk into; it has the vividness of an IMAX movie. I remember seeing these probably 20 years ago and just thinking 'My God, this is such a direct representation of the past in all of its complexity and beauty and violence.'

    That was my passion, and now I have curators coming into my office on a daily basis, and they're an interesting cast of characters. Some of them can be quite ornery, sometimes it's a herding cats situation. But they each have their passion. And my job is sustaining and supporting their vision.

    Is there a particular place in the museum where you have time to think?

    The elevator to my office takes me down to the balcony above the great hall. I love just going down to the balcony and watching our visitors coming into the museum. And then sometimes, just at random, walking north, south, east, west, letting my feet take me wherever. I've been here 16 years, you know, this is a place where you always discover something new.