Slide

The Importance of Transcultural Studies
跨文化學習的重要性

Interview with Andrew Stahl
Head of Undergraduate Painting at UCL The Slade School of Fine Art
採訪倫敦大學學院斯萊德藝術學院繪畫本科課程主任
安德魯·斯塔爾

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ND7_5897Andrew Stahl’s often large-scale paintings approach cultural differences and connections using pictorial language, imagination and figuration. Images become vehicles to carry painterly the experimentation. Much of his work reflects on travels to Japan and Thailand and addresses the conflation of time, space and cultures that long-haul travel brings.

安德魯·斯塔爾的作品多以大型油畫為主,用繪畫的語言來表達對不同文化之間差異和聯繫的思考。他的作品承載了他對繪畫的思考和探索。在日本和泰國的旅行激發了他很多創作靈感,這些作品都表達了旅行給他帶來的各種雜糅了關於時間、空間以及文化等方面的思考。


ART.ZIP: Could you please introduce a bit of yourself?

AS: I am an artist, a painter. Everyone teaching at the Slade has their own practice. I actually went to the Slade as a student; after graduation I went to live in Rome on a scholarship for two years and on my return I started exhibiting my work widely at home and abroad, and started teaching at Chelsea College of Art. I taught on both the graduate and undergraduate programme there for 12 years. Then I came here to the Slade and have been running undergraduate painting for 14 years.

My practice is associated with painting; I would say my painting came out of a particular time at the end of the 70s when postmodernism surfaced and was part of the questioning of the modernist discourse. I experienced a number of early 80s painting shows that encouraged me to develop scale and more expressive possibilities within painting.

Since leaving college when I did the Rome scholarship I have been aware of the incredible opportunities that residencies offer so I’ve done residencies in China, Australia, and Sri Lanka funded by a number of bodies including the British Council; I have done a number of residencies in Thailand – one seemed to lead to the other – and I travelled on a Wingate Scholarship for quite a number of months around Thailand and to Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and Vietnam in the early 90s – I made a lot of works and came back to show here at the Angela Flowers gallery. I’m very concerned with the possibilities that the transcultural offers for artists and art. I found Asia – East Asia particularly – so full of energy and so exciting. I think art is like an international language, and artists can borrow from each other. It’s an exchange. In 2006 I was invited to a residency in Bangkok with three or four English artists and three or four Thai artists, and we all worked in the same space at Bangkok University and showed at the Bangkok University Gallery. What interests me is the excitement of intercultural interaction – how being put in situations like this challenges your thinking and being in a very different culture affects your understanding of yourself. After this two-month residency, it seemed essential to reciprocate so I got one of the Thai artists to come to the Slade to be artist-in-residence and the same group of artists had a show in London at the Bischoff Weiss Gallery. We are in fact having a third show this June at the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre (funded by the British Council and UCL) so a kind of interaction and network has developed.

Having artists-in-residence has showed me the importance nowadays of having a more global approach to the art narrative; art schools can’t be merely western-focused; they need to be more global. So I established a series of art residencies at the Slade. We have had artists from China, Palestine, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Uganda. The artists come here, and they get studio space, participate in seminars, exhibitions and so on – I am really involved with this way of trying to globalise the curriculum. I was brought up to believe that art was focused in New York, London and Paris. Art was so western-centred. I remember being taught in art history that shadows were first painted in the Renaissance; that this was a discovery of the Renaissance. But when I went to the Forbidden City in Beijing, I saw those paintings with beautiful shadows on them. I looked at the dates – they were from 60 BC! More than a thousand years before the Renaissance. I think that our focus can be so limited. To me, there is little more exciting than to see something from another cultural perspective, to experience the stimulation of pushing your boundaries to their cultural limits. I find it encouraging that the Slade and UCL also considers this important.

ART.ZIP: 請您簡單地介紹一下您自己。

AS: 我是一位藝術家。幾乎所有斯萊德藝術學院的老師都有自己的藝術實踐。很多年前我也是在斯萊德藝術學院接受的教育,畢業後我獲得一筆不錯的獎學金讓我在羅馬遊學了兩年,回國後我就開始進行國內外的畫展,也開始了在切爾西藝術學院(Chelsea College of Art)12年的教學生涯,包括在本科和碩士課程授課,然後我來到了斯萊德藝術學院,在這裡工作了14年,主要以教授本科課程為主。

我的藝術實踐都與繪畫有關,比較關注70年代末後現代主義興起時質疑現代主義的那個特定的時期。在80年代早期我舉辦了很多畫展,而這些經驗讓我更有勇氣去嘗試大尺幅的作品和進行更多表達可能性的嘗試。斯萊德畢以後,我在羅馬的藝術家駐留經歷讓我體驗到了非常不一樣的經歷,所以我在得到包括英國文化委員會等機構的基金贊助後陸續到了很多其他國家進行藝術家駐留項目,當中包括中國、澳大利亞、斯里蘭卡等等。我還在泰國做了好些駐留項目,而這些項目又令我有機會開展一些新的項目。90年代初,在獲得溫蓋特獎學金(Wingate Scholarship)之後我還到了泰國週邊的國家,例如老撾、柬埔寨、緬甸和越南,在這過程中我創作了大量的作品,這些作品回到英國在安琪拉弗拉爾斯畫廊(Angela Flowers Gallery)進行展出。我十分重視這些跨文化交流給藝術家及其創作帶來的可能性。我發現亞洲充滿了活力和激情,特別是東亞地區。對我來說,藝術就像是一種國際語言,藝術家之間可以互相借鑑。這是一種交流與交換。2006年我和三、四位藝術家被邀請到曼谷與幾位泰國藝術家一起合作,我們都在曼谷大學提供的空間裡一起工作,一起在大學畫廊裡舉辦畫展。最吸引我的是這種跨文化交流所產生的碰撞,在自己國家和文化以外的地方挑戰自己、反思自己。在這兩個月的進駐項目後,作為報答,我邀請了其中一位泰國藝術家來到我們斯萊德藝術學院進行藝術家駐留項目,同時把當時一起參與這個進駐項目的藝術家聚在一起到比肖夫·維斯畫廊(Bischoff Weiss Gallery)舉辦群展。可喜的是,我們得到了英國文化委員會和倫敦大學學院的支持,今年六月,展覽會到曼谷藝術與文化中心(Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre)展出。就是這樣的互動交流促成了我們關係網絡的建立。

這些藝術家駐場項目讓我意識到了全球化的視角對當代藝術發展的重要性。藝術學院不能只以西方研究為中心,我們需要更全球化的視野。所以我在斯萊德創立了一系列的藝術家駐場項目。我們有來自中國、巴勒斯坦、巴格達、香港、烏干達等地區的藝術家。他們在斯萊德能獲得工作室空間、參加研討會、展覽等等。我全力支持並贊同以這樣的方式來使我們的課程更具國際化視野。我從小就被灌輸藝術中心在紐約、倫敦和巴黎這樣以西方為中心的意識。我還記得當初藝術史課上說影子最早在文藝復興的年代被繪畫出來,那是文藝復興時期的一大發現。但是當我在北京參觀故宮的時候,我看見了畫上那些影子被完美了勾勒出來。我看看日期,比文藝復興早了不止一千年!從那時起我覺得我們關注的太有限了。對我來說,從不同的文化視角來看待事物和體驗文化差異是非常有意思的事情,這對我有限的文化認知有很大的衝擊。令我更受鼓舞的是斯萊德藝術學院和倫敦大學學院都非常支持我們的項目。

 

ART.ZIP: How would you describe the strength of the Slade?

AS: The Slade is a very exciting art school. It is a gigantic argument about what the possibilities for making contemporary art should be. It is a stimulating place where students are encouraged to develop their individual directions and strengths. We treat them as artists from the beginning. In applicants, we’re looking for students able to initiate their own work. Another thing we encourage is experimentation. Skill is absolutely essential, but it is a vehicle to realise your ideas, not necessarily an end in itself. A typical situation that reflects this is when undergraduate students first come to the Slade, we give students a work space and ask them to make something to present to us in perhaps one weeks time – we don’t set projects or push certain technical learning skills at them; we expect them to access the skills as they require them to make their work. I think maybe this is a big difference between the Chinese system and our system.

We typically get around 1,300 applicants for our undergraduate course. From them we interview about 200 and we have only 40 places. So it’s probably the most difficult undergraduate Fine Art course to get into and the Slade ranks No.1 in the Guardian. We are part of UCL (University College London), which is an amazing institution. Often credited as being a key influence on the founding of UCL, Jeremy Bentham argued the doctrine of utilitarianism saying that the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people was the right position for government to take. UCL was founded on that principle and also has a tradition of interculturalism; it was the first university to accept people regardless of race, creed or political belief. So we are very international. We are very lucky to be in central of London, so that we can walk down to National Gallery, British Museum and so on.

The other thing is, the studio programme for the BA and BFA is structured around three studio subject areas: painting, sculpture and fine art media. Interdisciplinary interaction is essential, and the staff have tutor groups from across all three areas. Each tutor would have three or four painters, two or three sculptors, two or three media students, all of whom attend cross-area seminars, do critiques, discuss works and so on. No area is isolated, though they do make their work in spaces based on which of the three areas they have chosen. In addition, we have a very rich programme of visiting artists. We have visiting artists coming in all the time, and very often they give lectures and tutorials to the students; we also have a programme of lectures where critics, curators and theoreticians as well as artists give lectures.

ART.ZIP: 斯萊德藝術學院的強項都有哪些呢?

AS: 斯萊德藝術學院是一所非常令人振奮的藝術學校。現在大家都在爭論到底當代藝術應該如何發展。斯萊德是一個很有啓發性的地方,我們會鼓勵學生發展他們自己的長相并按照自己的方向去獨立成長。我們一開始就把他們作為藝術家來看待,我們在招生的時候會特別注重學生的自主性,另外我們還鼓勵創作的實驗性。技術當然是基礎,但是技術只是實現作品理念的一種工具,而不是最終的追求目標。在本科生剛入學的時候,我們會給學生提供工作空間,讓他們一周之內給我們展示他們的創作,我們並不會給他們設定什麼條條框框,或讓他們專注某項技術,我們希望他們是為了實現自己的作品理念而運用某種技術。我想這可能和中國的教育方式有頗大的區別。

我們通常有1300位申請人來報讀我們的本科課程。我們從中挑選200位進行面試,最終只錄取40人。所以我想這可能是最難申請的藝術學校了,因為斯萊德是排名第一的藝術學院。我們隸屬於頂尖的倫敦大學學院(UCL)。UCL的創立是有深遠影響的,傑里米·邊沁(Jeremy Bentham)提出實用主義的理論,政府應該最大程度地滿足大多數人的需求。倫敦大學學院的創立就是在這個準則之上,並一直保持著跨文化交流的傳統,它是第一所沒有種族、宗教及政治信仰歧視的大學,這也正是我們保持國際化的背景。很幸運,我們校區在倫敦市中心,離國家畫廊、大英博物館等都是近在咫尺,步行就能到達。

另外,我們的本科課程分為三個工作室方向:繪畫、雕塑和綜合藝術媒介。跨學科的交流是必須的,所以導師指導的學生都來自不同的方向,每個導師會有三到四個繪畫學生,兩到三個雕塑學生,兩到三個綜合媒介學生。他們都共同參與跨學科的研討會、做藝術評論、討論作品等等。沒有一個領域是孤立的,儘管他們創作的時候都在自己方向的空間裡。值得一提的是,我們有非常豐富的藝術家來訪項目。我們全年都有藝術家來訪為學生們做講座,給予學生指導或建議。除此之外,藝術評論家、策展人、理論家和藝術家作為客座講師的項目也是源源不斷的。

 

ART.ZIP: Will you say there are big differences in education model between China and the UK?

AS: I get the feeling that in some art schools in China – not all I’m sure – the focus on arrival at art school is that you have to acquire skills. I’m not saying which system is worse or better – it’s a different system. In China, there’s an emphasis on acquiring a level of skill before you decide what you want to do. But here, we provide the workshops for whatever you want to do. If you want to draw feet, we provide the model. If you want to make a video, we provide the video-editing workshop. It’s about servicing the student. As I said, experimentation is important at the Slade. I think the common thing between UK and China is all the teaching staffs are artists themselves; we all have our own practice and research.

ART.ZIP: 您覺得中英教育體制有什麼異同嗎?

AS: 對於中國藝術院校的情況我知道一些,中國的學生要進入藝術學校通常需要先掌握很多專業技能,當然也許並不是所有院校都這樣。我們并不會說英國或中國的體制更好,它們都很不同。在中國,學生必須掌握到一定程度的技術才開始決定自己要做什麼。但是在英國,在斯萊德,我們提供空間讓學生去做他們想做的。舉個例子,如果你想畫人體,我們就提供模特;如果你想做視頻,我們就提供視頻剪輯工作室,我們是服務于學生的。就像我剛才提到的,斯萊德十分重視實驗性。我想中國和英國相似的地方是,我們的教師自己都是藝術家,我們都有自己的藝術實踐和研究方向。

ART.ZIP: What differences do you see between Asian students and western students?

AS: I am against pigeonholing people due to nationality, but I do think some of my very best students have come from overseas. Students from China, or Korea, or Japan are often brilliant and very hardworking. Maybe partly it is because they know their parents have paid quite a lot of money for overseas tuition fees, so they are very focused, it is also I think that the fact that they are outside their usual cultural context gives them a freshness and ‘out of box’ approach to the subject, they have to deal with intercultural dialogue from the beginning. I think all my colleagues would echo that absolutely wonderful students/artists have come through here from outside the UK.

ART.ZIP: 亞洲學生和西方學生有什麼明顯的差別嗎?

AS: 我不贊成把學生按照國籍來分類,但我不得不承認最好的學生裡有相當大一部分是來自英國以外的學生,特別是中國、韓國和日本的學生通常都非常聰明和勤奮。或許是因為他們深知父母為他們的留學支付不菲的學費和生活費,所以他們學習特別專注。另外一點是,他們在脫離原來的文化氛圍下更能跳出原來的思維方式,以更獨特的角度來審視事物,所以說他們從一開始就必須面對這樣的跨文化對話,他們真的相當優秀。


ART.ZIP: What advice would you give to the oversea students if they want to apply for studying at the Slade?

AS: My suggestion for their application is that they should show us lots of work and a broad selection of the kind of artworks they are making. For the Slade, if they are not in the UK they should make a digital application. When we’re looking at portfolios, we’re not looking for evidence of any proof of skills in particular though it’s always good to see; we’re looking to be amazed or convinced by the work and to see applicants can really take initiative and benefit from the course. Sometimes people get set projects in foundation course; of course this can be interesting, but it can also be limiting for the portfolio. It’s very important for us to see self-initiated work. If we are interested in the work we always invite people to interview, but non-UK students always have the choice whether to come or not to interview if they are not in the UK. I think digital applications can sometimes be quite difficult to judge on their own. I advise people, if they are asked, to come to interview if they can. If they don’t come, we don’t exclude them, because it would be unfair; not everyone can easily afford to travel here for interviews. We consider people who attend the interview equally at the end of the process in just the same way as those who simply make the digital application but obviously we have much more to go on when we have met them.

ART.ZIP: 您會建議想要申請斯萊德藝術學院的學生一些什麼建議呢?

AS: 我的建議是他們在提交作品集的時候給我們盡可能多的、盡可能多樣化的、涉及不同領域的作品。如果申請人不在英國,那麼他們必須提交電子申請。我們看作品集的時候并不會特別留意某種特定的技術,技術功底好當然是加分的;我們尋找的是學生在日常生活或課程裡被激發的部分,我們要看到的是學生的自主性。有時候申請人在基礎課程的時候有很多命題作業,當然這些也是有趣的,但是這也可能侷限了作品集的多樣性。我們最關注的還是希望看到學生自發的項目。我們會邀請學生來面試,但是不在英國的申請人可以選擇是否來面試。因為有時候我們很難只靠電子申請來判斷學生。我會建議所有申請人都來參加我們的面試,如果他們無法參加,我們也不會自動排除他們,因為這樣很不公平,不是所有人都能負擔得起飛一趟英國來參加面試的。我們對來參加面試和無法出席面試的申請人一視同仁,當然,我們在面試的時候對學生的考量會更多。

                   

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