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何謂艾茉莉‧卡爾?:加拿大西岸藝術的共時代性 What Is Emily Carr?: Contemporaneity in the West Coastal Art of Canada

作者
洪敏秀
Author
Min-Hsiou Hung
摘要

本論文研究加拿大藝術家艾茉莉‧卡爾(1871–1945)崛起的創作背景,並以同時代性一詞中「多時共在」的概念解釋她對加拿大西岸藝術的影響力。第一部分介紹卡爾成為加拿大圖像,主要來自大量學術研究與文化複製,包括溫哥華藝術館經常重複的卡爾展演。第二部分探討卡爾在加拿大西岸藝術歷史的可見性其實蘊藏不可見,涵蓋諸如十九世紀末、二十世紀初多重社會、文化、歷史敘事等多時共在脈絡。卡爾穿梭其間,她的書寫與畫作也都表現她與其時代或同儕的連結與斷裂關係。第三部分以當代加拿大西岸藝術代表人物勞倫斯‧保羅‧尤克斯威樂騰(1957–)及其作品為例,討論他的創作即在闡明卡爾影響下的歷史及其陰影,而尤克斯威樂騰所批判的卡爾,反而成為加拿大西岸藝術創作反覆出現的精神指標。本論文以卡爾為例所提出的共時代概念,依舊影響該地區藝術家,卻也是他們的創作持續推陳出新的力量。

Synopsis

This essay describes the emergence of Emily Carr (1871-1945) as a Canadian icon and the rise of her contemporary influence on the West Coastal art of Canada. It first draws upon Carr's biographical accounts to examine how she generates artistic creativity in the West Coastal landscape tradition. In the written narrative of her encounter with Aboriginal culture, she offers an account of her discovery in Aboriginal art of the expression of a purely figural perspective while providing a seemingly current consideration of her epoch—an expression of the larger forces that continue to shape West Coastal art. Alongside this introduction to Carr's constitution of her time, this essay explores the contemporaneity—here defined as the condition of co-existing with others of multiple temporalities—found in a series of conceptually similar exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The curators at the Gallery have unrelentingly emphasized Carr's intersection with other artists of different time periods in the larger B.C. artistic world, thus situating Carr's work in the West Coastal art historical tradition while simultaneously producing a potentially new Carr. Each of the artistic events, as established in each exhibition, reveals a creative crisis, which is saliently witnessed in the work of the Salish-Okanagan artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (b. 1957). In political and historical spheres, he demonstrates West Coastal contemporaneity in the late twentieth century, as initially expressed by Carr. Carr's artistic vision, as expressed in painting and writings, contains an innovative and recollective dimension of the Canadian Victoriana exhibited in expressions of an artist's disjointed yet coalescent relationship with her epoch; in this respect, Carr continues to provide inspiration and invigoration for the renewal of contemporary North American Coastal artistic practices.