业界大咖谈“区块链”（一）

吴冠中《紫竹院儿童游乐园》 1973年作

An Industrial Biggie Talking about“Blockchains”

虽然目前区块链应用仍处于投石问路的阶段，但艺术市场从业者却看到了它在艺术行业内的潜在应用场景，及应用的可能性。为此我们诚挚邀请艺术品领域的数位代表，从专业角度出发谈谈区块链技术在艺术品领域的相关题。

Although the application of blockchain is still at the stage of throwing straws in the air, practitioners of the art market have seen its potential application scenarios and possibilities in the art industry. For this reason, we sincerely invite several representatives in the artwork field to discuss the related issues of blockchain technology in the artwork field from a professional perspective.

周春芽《晚樱与桃花》 2015年作

王邦华：中国收藏家协会副秘书长

Wang Banghua: Deputy General Secretary of China Collectors Association

Q：区块链技术进入到艺术品行业，在您看来会与哪些领域产生交融？

Q: As the blockchain technology enters into the artwork industry, which fields do you think it will blend with?

王邦华：我的理解，区块链是在无须互信的环境下，通过密码学技术让系统所有参与方协作，来共同维护一个可靠的“账本”系统，它实际是一种去中心化的概念。去中心化，是指没有中心，或者说人人都是中心。在一个系统中，数据被存储到每个节点时，也会被同步复制整个账本，这样原本的信息孤岛，或需要被信任的中间方参与的传统模式将被打破。区块链不需要中介参与、信息开放透明且不可篡改、数据安全且成本很低，这恰是艺术品行业可以加以利用的。

Wang Banghua: My understanding of blockchain is that it enables all participants in the system to work together through the cryptography technology to maintain a reliable “ledger” system without mutual trust. Actually, it is a concept of decentralization. Decentralization means that there is no center, or everyone is the center. In such a system, when data is stored into each node, it will also be copied into the entire ledger synchronously, so that the original information island or the traditional mode requiring the participation of trusted intermediate parties will be broken. The features of blockchain, which are exactly what the artwork industry can take advantage of, are as follows: it does not require intermediary participation, the information is open and transparent, and cannot be tampered with, and the data is secure with a low cost.

它具有的解决中介信用问题的能力，击中了艺术品市场缺乏合适的记录保留方式和艺术品来源实时验证等需求痛点。我国艺术市场有其自身独特的交易规律，已经形成了以画廊、拍卖会、博览会等为核心的交易体系，并通过这个交易体系的规则，最大限度地链接艺术市场里可以信任的买家和卖家，从而推动市场中艺术品交易的进行。而对于另一些热爱艺术的潜在藏家，经济上也完全能够负担艺术品，却对目前艺术市场运作模式十分抵触，对中间机构所提供的数据并不信任，这成为吸引他们进入艺术品市场的一大顾虑。

It has the ability to solve the intermediary credit problem, hitting the demand pain points such as lack of proper record-keeping methods, real-time verification of artwork sources and so on in the artwork market. China's art market has its own unique transaction rules and it has formed a transaction system with galleries, auctions, expositions and so on as its core. Meanwhile, through the rules of this transaction system, it maximizes the link between trusted buyers and sellers in the art market, so as to promote the transactions of artworks in the market. However, for other potential collectors who love art, they can afford artworks economically, but they are very resistant to the current operation mode of the art market and do not trust the data provided by the intermediary organizations. This has become a big concern to attract them into the artwork market.

实际上，即便是已经身处行业内的群体，想要对整个市场达成信任共识也是非常困难的，尤其是在艺术品去向和鉴证服务方面，这些机构一向讳莫如深。大多数情况下这是无奈的，也是由于艺术品本身的特殊属性决定，或长久以来累积的问题导致的，一时很难改变局面，这也造成了社会大众关于艺术品市场“水深”的印象。

As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to reach a consensus on trust in the whole market even for groups already in the industry. Especially in terms of artworks' whereabouts and authentication services, these organizations have always been secretive. In most cases, this is helpless and also due to the special attributes of the artwork itself, or the accumulated problems for a long time, and thus it is difficult to change the situation in a short time. Meanwhile, this has created the impression of the public about the “depth”of the artwork market.

赵无极《16.9.91》 1991年作

首先，艺术品来源信息透明度低，真伪难辨，因艺术品的真假来源引发了争议，不付款和索赔事件经常发生。且艺术品溯源一般会通过专家或艺术家本人鉴定，或市场公开交易记录来作为判定，缺乏合适的记录保留方式，使得欺骗和欺诈行为很容易有机可乘。其次，单一艺术品的估值从来就很难获得市场公认，众口难调，它会受到作者的因素、历史的因素、流转的因素、持有人的因素、拍卖者等无法一一枚举的各种因素的影响，而每种因素都可能会使其估值产生天壤之别，而这种差别也会使外界对于行业诚信度产生怀疑。

First of all, the source information of artworks is low in transparency and it's difficult to distinguish the true from the false, so disputes over the true and false sources of artworks often arise, as well as non-payment and claim events. In addition, the traceability of artworks will generally be appraised by experts or artists themselves, or judged based on public transaction records in the market, so there is a lack of proper record-keeping methods, making cheaters and frauds easy to take advantage of. Secondly, it has always been difficult for the valuation of a single artwork to gain market recognition because it's difficult to cater for all tastes, and it will be influenced by the factors such as creators, history, circulation, holders, auctioneers, etc. The influence of various factors cannot be enumerated, each of which may lead to a huge difference in its valuation, and this difference will also cast doubt on the integrity of the industry from the outside world.

区块链提供了一种可能性，在于它上面的内容是可以被全世界集合管理系统和编目数据库所使用的，保险公司、博物馆、执法机构等都可以实时验证，整个过程便捷，具有广泛的使用价值。在艺术市场的应用领域，比如可以为艺术家、收藏家、机构提供免费的库存管理系统，在艺术品的所有权发生变化时相关机构和个人还可以寻找没有公开披露过的艺术品信息，也可以作为“中间商”，将艺术品的完整生态链信息放到区块链上，为博物馆、私人藏家等对艺术品存在供求关系的双方，提供可靠的信息平台支撑。

The blockchain provides a possibility, that is, its contents can be used by the world's collective management systems and cataloguing databases, and insurance companies, museums, law enforcement agencies, etc. can verify them in real time. The whole process is convenient and has wide application value. In the application field of the art market, for example, it can provide artists, collectors and institutions with a free inventory management system; in addition, relevant institutions and individuals can look for artwork information that has not been publicly disclosed when the ownership of artworks has been changed. It can also be used as a “middleman” to put the complete ecological chain information of artworks on the blockchain, providing reliable information platform support for museums, private collectors and other parties that have a supply-demand relationship with artworks.

Q：区块链技术将会为艺术品行业带来哪些改变？

Q: What changes will the blockchain technology bring to the artwork industry?

王邦华：艺术市场一直存在着流动受限、真伪难辨、难定传承这三大痛点，随着艺术品市场快速发展，三大痛点也在逐步放大。区块链或许能为艺术市场带来更多透明度，通过区块链的多方参与，共同维护同一个账本的形式，争取尽可能多的供应链参与方，参与方越多，共同维护的数据越多，越容易给消费者带来更多的信任背书。自身去中心化的特征，分布式的网络，天然克服了中心化系统的各种弊端，同时还能回避人为作恶或者数据意外损失的问题。

Wang Banghua: There have always been three pain points in the art market: limited liquidity, difficult identification of authenticity and difficult determination of inheritance. With the rapid development of the artwork market, the three pain points are also being gradually amplified. The blockchain may bring more transparency to the art market. Through the multiparty participation of the blockchain, and in the form of jointly maintaining the same ledger, they will strive for as many supply chain participants as possible. The more participants there will be, the more data they will maintain together, the easier it will be to bring more trust and endorsement to consumers. Because of its decentralized nature, the distributed network has naturally overcome various drawbacks of the centralized system, and it can also avoid the problems of man-made wickedness or accidental loss of data.

借由区块链技术的自身特性，未来我们也许可以为每一件艺术品、每一位用户都创建了独有的数字身份，记录每一次的流转，使艺术品的交易历史（包括：所有权、展览历史、成文记录、流转记录及其他关键信息）从此有据可循，所有人可以通过追溯艺术珍品区块链获得确权信息，这有助于建立艺术市场的诚信机制并提高市场流动性，一旦发生造假信息将无法删除，并将溯源到任何一个关联人或物，也就将人们在现实生活中的信用初步引入到这一价值网络中。

By virtue of the characteristics of blockchain technology, we may be able to create a unique digital identity for each artwork and each user in the future, recording e ach circulation. I n this way, the transaction history of artworks ( including ownership, exhibition history, written records, circulation records and other key information ) can be followed from then on, so that all people can obtain ownership confirmation information by tracing back to the blockchain of art treasures. This will help to establish a credit mechanism in the art market and improve market liquidity. Once forgery information is generated, it can not be deleted. Moreover, any related person or thing will be traced back, thus introducing people's credit in real life into this value network.

再如困扰收藏界许久的影像艺术版权问题，数码摄影、录像艺术等新媒体艺术的创作和交易，便可借助区块链技术加强版数监管，以提升藏家的入场信心。此外，在文博系统的调研普查，被盗文物艺术品的追索，艺术品大数据库的建立，等等领域，都将因区块链技术而受益。如果站在非营利的角度，从技术进步和行业规范来说，区块链会给艺术行业带来的将是更加光明的改变。

Another example is for the copyright issue of image art that has plagued the collection community for a long time. The creation and transactions of new media art such as digital photography and video art can be regulated to strengthen the edition by means of blockchain technology, so as to enhance the confidence of collectors. In addition, such fields as the research and investigation of heritage and museum organs, the recourse of stolen cultural relics and artworks, and the establishment of big databases of artworks will all benefit from the blockchain technology. If we stand in a non-profit perspective and judge from the perspective of technological progress and industrial specifications, the blockchain will bring brighter changes to the art industry.

徐悲鸿《喜马拉雅山全景》 1940年作

Q：区块链技术在管理、验证方面具有全球影响力，而同时仍有一批艺术家认为数字化的处理方式将会降低人们对艺术之美的感知力。对此您怎么看待？

Q: The blockchain technology has global influence in management and verification, while a group of artists still believe that people's perception of the beauty of art will be reduced due to the digitally processing methods. What do you think about this?

王邦华：区块链的处理方式的确看起来很复杂，但即便加诸艺术市场，也只是服务手段，而不能改变艺术市场，甚至是艺术品的本质属性。实际上，艺术是简单直接的，对于审美的感知力人人都有，虽然各不相同，但大多不会与技术手段相关。

Wang Banghua: The processing methods of the blockchain indeed seem to be very complicated, but even if it is added to the art market, it is only a means of service and cannot change the art market or even the essential attributes of artworks. In fact, art is simple and direct, and everyone has the perception of aesthetics. Although they are different, most of them are not related to technical means.

实际上，这种数字化将降低艺术品和收藏品交易成本的潜能，让我们能更好地欣赏和享受。其简单、安全的认证过程可以帮助我们进一步扩展市场，也会带来拍卖行的数字化转型。现在，当一件高价记录诞生时，伴随着这件艺术品而来的，还有拍卖行提供的一叠厚厚的鉴真免责文件，收获美的喜悦常常会被这种现实情况冲淡。未来，当一件拍卖品有一个唯一且不可篡改的标示，只要确认它是美好的，你只需要点击鼠标就可以参加拍卖、中标，然后归属权变更了……这无疑极大地提高了流动性和效率，而且更能保证我们审美的纯粹性。

Actually, this digitalization will reduce the potential of transaction costs of artworks and collectibles, so that we can appreciate and enjoy them better. Its simple and secure certification process can help us further expand the market and also bring about digitalized transformation of auction houses. Now, when a record of high price was born, a thick stack of authentication and exemption documents provided by auction houses will be along with this artwork, and the joy of harvesting beauty is often diluted by this reality. In the future, when an auction item has a unique and non-tampering logo, you can participate in the auction and win the bid only by clicking the mouse once you confirm that it is beautiful, and then the ownership will be changed... This undoubtedly greatly improves the liquidity and efficiency, and also ensures our aesthetic purity.

吴冠中《老家北渠村》 1994年作

Q：互联网+时代，艺术品电商等却一直不温不火，区块链技术的到来，会否带来利好改变？

Q: In the Internet+ Era, the artwork e-commerce has been subdued. Will the arrival of blockchain technology bring about favorable changes?

王邦华：区块链应用到某一个行业，不是简单地做加法，尤其是艺术行业，更是要从艺术市场的交易底层逻辑方面来进行设计。其实，无论做艺术品电商，还是做艺术品区块链，一定要搞懂艺术品和艺术品市场。如果不懂艺术行业的业务逻辑，光靠技术突破，则会走向“死胡同”，也根本解决不了艺术品市场所存在的问题。

Wang Banghua:The application of blockchain to an industry is not simply to do the addition, especially for the art industry, it needs to be designed from the transaction bottom logic of the art market. In fact, you must first understand the artworks and the artwork market, no matter whether you are involved in artwork e-commerce or in an artwork blockchain. If you don't understand the business logic of the art industry and rely on technological breakthroughs alone, you will go to a “dead end” and the the problems existing in the artwork market won't be solved simply.

从本质上看，艺术品是一个非常独特的商品，不像一般的标准商品，可以快速生产和销售。艺术品都有两种属性；一种是物质属性，即价格属性；另外一种是精神属性，本质上是一种传承和文化，难以以价格论，甚至可以说，对懂艺术品的人，价格的多少意义不是很大，只要他能买得起。

In essence, an artwork is a very unique commodity, unlike ordinary standard commodities, which can be produced and sold quickly. The artwork has two attributes, one is the material attribute: price attribute; the other is the spiritual attribute, which is essentially a kind of inheritance and culture, so it is difficult to determine the value by price. It can even be said that the price does not make much sense to people who understand art as long as they can afford it.

我国不少艺术品电商企业走入了误区，并没有利用移动互联网发展的红利有效积累粉丝和用户发挥原本的行业优势，而寄希望于“资本”博“资本”。因此，如果区块链与艺术行业结合仅仅停留在概念层面上的进入或者跟风，而不能真正了解艺术、了解艺术行业以及艺术品市场的交易逻辑，不能设计出布局艺术品+区块链的信任系统，并且以区块链技术链接艺术市场里可以信任的资源，包括各种艺术品、买家、卖家、艺术经纪人等，那么，整个艺术品+区块链体系也就失去了存在的意义。

Many artwork e-commerce enterprises in China have gone into a misunderstanding, and they have not effectively accumulated fans and users to take their original industry advantages by using the dividend of mobile Internet development, but hope to use the leverage of “one kind of capital”to “another kind of capital”. Therefore, if the combination of the blockchain and the art industry only stays at the conceptual level to enter or follow the trend, instead of really understanding the art, the artwork industry and the transaction logic of the artwork market, it is impossible to design a trust system for layout of Artwork + Blockchain and link the trusted resources in the art market with blockchain technology, including all kinds of artworks, buyers, sellers, art brokers, etc. In that way, the whole Artwork + Blockchain system also loses its significance.

Q：国内已经有机构提出了艺术品+区块链的概念，据您了解市场反应如何？目前存在哪些问题吗？

Q: The concept of Artwork + Blockchain has already been put forward by some domestic organizations. According to your understanding, how does the market react? What are the current problems?

王邦华：区块链技术诞生以来，艺术市场一直在逐步探索对这一技术的运用，其中有不少充满创造力的尝试为市场注入活力。

Wang Banghua: Since the birth of blockchain technology, the art market has been gradually exploring the application of this technology, and many creative attempts have been made to inject vitality into the market.

一些人认为当下是投资区块链的最好机遇，另一些人更倾向于驻足观望,他们不认为相对传统的艺术市场会在短期内发生颠覆性变革。透明化将会吸引更多藏家，扩大的艺术市场规模是机遇也是挑战。在艺术行业中，这种透明化带来的无疑还有破坏性和对传统模式造成的威胁。毕竟创新并不总能带来颠覆，当年在线艺术拍卖也曾宣称将取代传统艺术市场，但直到今天它依然远远不能撼动大型拍卖行在市场的主流地位。而且随着区块链技术的加持，在线艺术拍卖是否会面临新的机遇，值得期待。

Some people think that the present is the best opportunity to invest in the blockchain, while others prefer to stop and watch, and they do not think that the more traditional art market will undergo disruptive changes in the short term. Transparency will attract more collectors, and the expanded scale of the art market is both an opportunity and a challenge. In the art industry, this kind of transparency undoubtedly will bring destruction and threats to the traditional model. After all, innovation does not always bring about subversion. The online art auction also claimed to replace the traditional art market, but it still cannot shake the mainstream position of large auction houses in the market to this day. And with the blessing of blockchain technology, it is worth looking forward to whether online art auctions will face new opportunities.

另有质疑认为，区块链技术提高了行业透明度，但这一技术自身的透明度谁来保障。区块链的“分布式账本数据库”特性，可以轻松实现艺术品数据化后的安全问题，但是，艺术品如何数据化？假如艺术品本身就是假货，录入的数据也就没有什么意义了。

Another doubt is that the blockchain technology has improved the transparency of the industry, but who will guarantee the transparency of this technology itself. The security problem after the artwork is digitized can be easily solved through the “distributed ledger database” feature of the blockchain, but how is the artwork digitized? If the artwork itself is fake, the data entered will be meaningless.

而且眼下，我们更要警惕“区块链泡沫”，小心资本市场概念炒作。现在区块链如此火热，不是热在以区块链技术解决问题，而是在于炒概念估值，或者是利用数字货币概念搞“资本”。

Moreover, at present, we should be more alert to the “blockchain bubble” and be careful of the hype of capital market concepts. Now, the blockchain is so hot. It is not to solve the problem with blockchain technology, but to hype the concept valuation or to play with “capital”by using the concept of digital currency.

吴冠中《漓江新篁》 1975年作

Q：作品一旦流入市场便存在确真问题，您认为区块链技术的应用能否真正解决艺术品的防伪溯源问题，实现有保障的购买？

Q: Once works enter the market, there will be a problem of authentication. Do you think the security traceability problem of artworks can be really solved to realize guaranteed purchase through the application of blockchain technology?

王邦华：和其他商品相比艺术品防伪溯源相对复杂，对将要录入的艺术品进行真伪鉴定，而艺术品的鉴定还主要依靠“眼学”，应该说大多艺术品门类，技术都做不到完全取代目鉴。艺术品鉴定非常专业，每个专家的水平也不一样，经验不同，结论不一，这种情况很常见。如此一来，如何保证这个“艺术品”的真伪呢？如果是现代艺术家的作品，可以请其本人出具真品的凭证，这是目前普遍的做法，区块链的介入，即从作品诞生之日起，流传转手，步步可查，自然是更方便。但对于更早之前的作品呢？比如唐宋的瓷器、明清的古画，这个保真就比较困难，因为我们也知道很多专家因为缺乏经验而判断失误，或出于各种原因故意给出错误的判断，如果被记入区块链的信息本来就有问题呢？这又回归到艺术品行业的本源。

Wang Banghua: Compared with other commodities, the security traceability of artworks is relatively complex. The authenticity of the artwork to be entered has to be appraised; however, the appraisal of the artwork mainly depends on the “science of eyes”. It should be said that, for most artwork categories, technologiescan not completely replace the visual appraisal. Artwork appraisal is very professional. The level of each expert is also different, and it's very common for them to make different conclusions based on different experience. In this way, how will the authenticity of this “artwork” be guaranteed? If it is a work by a modern artist, he or she can be asked to issue a certificate ofauthenticity. This is a common practice at present. If the intervention of the blockchain is from the date of the creation of the artwork, it is naturally more convenient to query every step of the circulation and hands changing process. But what about earlier works? For example, it's more difficult to identify the authentication of porcelains in Tang and Song Dynasties and ancient paintings in Ming and Qing Dynasties. As we know, many experts will make misjudgements because of lack of experience or deliberately give wrong judgments for various reasons. What if the information recorded in the blockchain is inherently problematic? This returns to the origin of the artwork industry again.

众所周知，国内外拍卖行都有一个免责条款，不对拍卖中的艺术品瑕疵承担责任。如果连占据整个艺术市场大部分交易额的拍卖行业，以它们的专业程度，尚不能对艺术品做到完全保真，区块链技术的应用想要真正解决艺术品的防伪溯源问题，实现有保障的购买，应该说还有很大的探讨空间。

As we all know, auction houses at home and abroad have an exemption clause, that is, they do not take responsibility for the defects of artworks in the auction. If even the auction industry, which occupies most of the transaction volume in the entire art market, cannot achieve complete authentication to artworks with its professionalism, there should be still much room for discussion on whether the security traceability problem of artworks will be really solved to realize guaranteed purchase through the application of blockchain technology.