Alain Robert, known as the “French Spider-Man,” climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world, in 2011.Credit...Emmanuel Aguirre/Getty Images
What’s It Like to Climb a Skyscraper?
Alex Honnold, who climbed a 1,667-foot-tall skyscraper in Taiwan on Sunday, is one of a dozen or so known skyscraper climbers worldwide.
Mr. Robert, 63, developed his own system for rating buildings based on how difficult they are to climb. A building’s grips mattered more than its height, he said.
He gave the Brooklyn Bridge a difficulty rating of two out of 10 after climbing it in 1994. He gave the same rating to the Eiffel Tower, which he scaled with his bare hands in 1996. “It’s really like a ladder,” he said of the Paris landmark.
He was also the last person to climb Taipei 101, in 2004, then the tallest building in the world. He completed the climb just days after having surgery on his left elbow, in heavy rain and with a top rope, which he said the authorities had required.
Mr. Robert gave Taipei 101 a rating of six.
Some climbers said they were concerned that Mr. Honnold’s climb, carried live on Netflix, would encourage reckless, untrained attempts.
“My message to kids: Don’t do it,” Mr. Goodwin said. “Unless you’re a world-class climber like Alex Honnold and Alain Robert, unless you have that ability, it’s a suicide mission.”
For others, the danger keeps them going.
“The only way I felt alive was when I was risking my life,” Mr. Robert said, adding that he might try climbing another building in the coming weeks.
當 Alex Honnold 出現在台北 101 的外牆上，城市的視線被迫向上。他不帶繩索，僅憑指尖的摩擦力，在這座由鋼骨、混凝土與玻璃構成的 508 公尺高樓刻劃人類的意志。
有人認為這是瘋狂舉動，大多數人則將其視為一種奇觀。然而，自由攀登（Free Solo）不是突然出現的極端表演，而是一條在攀岩史中，逐步成形、備受爭議、卻始終存在的運動支線。理解 Alex Honnold，其實要去理解自由攀登（Free Solo）從來不只是運動，而是一場關於在多重系統界定社會的時代中，如何透過自己的選擇來重新定義真實自由的辯證。
什麼是自由攀登（Free Solo）？
Free Solo 指的是：在攀登過程中，不使用繩索、不使用任何保護裝備，完全依靠身體技巧與路線判斷完成攀爬。一旦失誤，沒有任何外部機制可以補救。
這與 Free Climbing（自由攀岩） 有本質差異。自由攀岩雖然不依靠器械上攀，但仍使用繩索作為保護，其核心目的是讓攀登者在失誤時不至於喪命。因此，Free Solo 並不是「更困難的自由攀岩」，而是一種風險結構完全不同的形式。
Beatriz González, Who Chronicled Colombia’s Turmoil in Paint, Dies at 93
Often drawing from reproduced images or newspaper photos, she made work that quietly yet memorably critiqued her country’s social and political order.
Ms. González’s 1987 painting “Los Papagayos (“The Parrots”), depicts Belisario Betancur, then the Colombian president, and his generals, flattened into a row and rendered in aggressive reds, oranges and greens.Credit...Beatriz González/Pérez Art Museum Miami
She established her reputation with “Los Suicidas del Sisga” (“The Suicides of the Sisga,” 1965), a series of paintings based on a newspaper photograph of a couple that committed suicide together.Credit...Beatriz González, via the National Museum of Colombia
Her rendering of contemporary Colombian reality reached its culmination in a series of paintings she did in response to a government-launched massacre in November 1985, when Mr. Betancur’s military attacked the leftist guerrilla group M-19, which had occupied Bogotá’s Palace of Justice. The assault killed at least 98, including guerrillas, civilians and 11 judges.
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An installation of Ms. González’s work in 2017 at the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt.Credit...Hans-Georg Roth/Corbis, via Getty Images
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