以“成功”来定义或评判一个艺术家,是诸多艺术细分领域中不受欢迎但又无时不在的做法。原因在于,中国,向来敬奉“成者王侯败者寇”的哲学。然而在艺术界,单纯的成功又不具备说服力,在许多时候“成功艺术家”会与“暴发户”、“土豪”联系在一起,并且,目前的中国对“成功”的认识又很单一,指标只有两个:是否名气够大、是否卖得够好。因此,艺术家在“成功”之前,既羞羞答答耻于提这个词,但又热切向往“成功”降临到自己身上。这是目前中国艺术界的窘状,非但视觉艺术如此,音乐、文学等等,莫过如此,再狭义一点地说,这更是中国年轻视觉艺术家的尴尬境地。如果以“85时期”中部分崭露头角的当代艺术家作为第一代成功艺术家的话,如今,出生于1985年之后的当代艺术家则是第三代,在它们之间的,是70后出生的艺术家以在拍卖市场上站稳脚跟为标志构成的“第二代”。这三代艺术家的标志分水岭显然不单单是因为艺术家出生的年代之故,第一代 Defining or judging an artist as “success” is an unpopular but timeless practice in many art subdivisions. The reason is that China has always admired the philosophy of “being the king of kings and losers.” However, in the art world, pure success is not convincing. In many cases, “successful artists” are associated with “upstarts” and “local tyrants,” and the current success of China “Recognition is very simple, there are only two indicators: whether the reputation is big enough, whether to sell well enough. Therefore, the artist shame and humiliate the word before ”success,“ but eagerly yearned for ”success“ to fall upon himself. This is the embarrassment of the Chinese art scene at present. Non-visual arts, music, literature and so on are not the case. In a narrow sense, this is even more an awkward position for young Chinese visual artists. If contemporary artists emerge as some of the first generation of successful contemporary artists in the Period 85, contemporary artists born after 1985 are the third generation with artists born between 1970 and the present In the auction market stand firm as a symbol of ”second generation ". The watersheds of these three generations of artists are obviously not only because of the birth of the artist, but also because of the first generation