| Reviews

KON TIKI

) HAL GRIFFIN COMMENTS ON PM, ‘MODERN ART’ DEBATE

Writers, artists in revolt - but where are they going?

THE APPEARANCE ofa new “Jittle magazine” in Vancouver

is an event to be noted, if only

because it connotes the gaping void of our commercialized cul- ture. : : i

Our scientists have been in- itiated into the cult of the atom bomb to pursue the contem- plated extermination of the ris- Ing socialist culture. Our writ- ers have become apologists and propagandists for the cold war.

Our artists flee reality into the realm of the abstract where only their like can follow them. Our poets seek refuge in mys- ticism and obscurantism and there they are safe because only

eS they know what they mean.

‘Crying to ‘heaven against

_ the “regimentation” of social-

ism, they try to ignore the men- acing limits being placed on their own democratic “free dom.”

For those who dare to face reality, who dare moreover to

express it in their art and seek

to unite their art with the peo- ple’s aspirations in order to change reality, there is the cul- tural blacklist—for singers, no concerts or radio engagements; for conductors, no orchestras;

for writers, no publishers; for .

artists, no exhibitions or pur- chasers. And, for the people, no art that expresses their real-

ity and their desires except

that which they create them- selves.

The process is by no means complete, nor need it become so. We know what it is and how it must be fought by see- sing it at work in our own city— -John Goss, the internationally

_ respected singer and teacher, lit-

erally driven from the ‘country because he spoke for peace; Jacques Singer, the brilliant young conductor, denied renew-

_ al of his contract with Vancou-

ver Symphony Orchestra _be- cause he insisted on: taking his _music to the people.

It is inevitable that this all- embracing attempt to distort the arts and bend them to the purpose of the cold war, as epitomized by the Massey Re- port, will engender revolt and struggle among writers, artists

~ Capsule

Fascinating narrative of a group of Norwegian scientists who made @ 100-day voyage on a balsa wood raft from South America to Polynesia in an ef-

: fort to prove the Polynesians © ' are of South American origin.

Amateur photography does not detract from excellence of film.

_ MEET ME AFTER THE SHOW

Betty .Grable.

"THE DAY THE © EARTH STOOD STILL

A literary science fiction

thriller with, of all things, a

message about peace. You could do worse. _MR. BELVEDERE RINGS THE BELL Clifton ‘Webb. The _bell’s

cracked.

- WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

At least there wouldn’t be films like this. : THE GREAT CARUSO

Mario Lanza. Fine singing.

and musicians as they become aware of what is happening. It is likewise inevitable that some of them, refusing to compromise their integrity for dubious reward, will face up to reality and align themselves with the progressive causes of the peo- ple which alone can give con tent and purpose to their work.

Te iaeten oo Tt

WE HAD hoped that PM, this ‘latest and most pretentious in a line of little magazines pub- lished in Vancouver since the twenties, might reflect some of this. revolt and offer some in- dication, however tentative, of a willingness to serve the cul- tural needs of our times. A study of the two issues already published shows that the hope was vain. Not only is there little willingness, there is no apparent awareness.

When the first issue appeared last November we read it, and refrained from comment. A ‘first issue, like the first night of a play, may show weaknesses that were not discerned during production. We hoped that the editors, Yvonne Agazarian, George Wright and John Brock- ington, might recognize the glaring deficiency of their work as it appeared «in ‘the finality of print. But the second issue, which has just appeared, only confirms the impression created by the first. ;

Objectively, this little maga- zine represénts a revolt against the mass circulation magazines and the established cultural publications. For the editors and contributors of PM, however, the revolt is only one of form, not of content.

Their revolt has no conscious direction, unless it is to enlist others in their blind attempt to .@Scape from reality. Unwill- ing to subject their talents to the mutilating demands of the mass circulation magazines, they are also unprepared to face the issues confronting them and all writers and artists today.

~ So it is that PM, seeking to’

cut the bonds it can feel but dare not explain, soars into empty heights of intellectual en- deavor where its assorted pas- Senger list of writers and art- ists can create a geometric’ cloud World undisturbed by the tu- mult raging on the real earth, Which of course is far below them.

Mario Prizak is absorbed in the despair and futility of his poetic quests, a despair which

fortunately he is prevented from .

imparting to others by the very . obscurity of his meaning—pre- suming there is one.

William McConnell, infatu- ated with his own attempts to assemble clever but never con- vincing word pictures, meanders

through one quarter of the sec.

“end issue in poor imitation of the New Yorker without ac- complishing anything more

than a demonstration of infan- —

tile writing.

The articles ‘are Somewhat — more intelligible to the reader — not initiated into the inner mys-' teries and hidden symbols that

enable the contributors to find

content and significance where —

, there is none. Those on the theatre, “Everyman Theatre” in the first issue and “Dorothy Somerset” in the second, are perhaps the best.

. But even the articles, where

“selves.

they touch on controversial is- sues, shy away from funda- mentals. John Brockington, in his “Quo V.S.O.,” writes what purports to be a critique of the Vancouver Symphony Orches- ‘tra. Actually it is a ‘pretentious apology for the Symphony So- ciety's policies, concealing a snide at- tack on Jacques Singer.

Rene Boux’s “A Note on The- atre and the Massey Report”

does attempt to probe pertinent ,

questions, although the writer’s own lack of conviction leads to his preoccupation with effect rather than cause.

One common ‘bond links al- most all the writers and artists whose names are listed in PM, their concentration on form as the substitute for content. They are not writing and painting for the people or even any section of the people. ‘They are creat- ‘ing only for themselves and the small group around them) They are the avant garde—leading no one and without a future.

cae cree Mee:

ANY COMMENTS on the arts must take into account the de- ‘bate on modern art precipitated by Mildred Valley Thornton’s

criticism of Lawren Harris’

work in Vancouver Art Gallery. Some of the artists who appear in PM have taken part in this debate through the pages of the daily press, among them J. L. Shadbolt, one of this country's foremost artists, whose “Seed Children” is reproduced in the second issue.

One effect of the debate has been to show the confusion in the minds of even such artists as Shadbolt, who is generally regarded as a progressive. An- other has been to indicate that the people are better able to

diagnose the ills of the artists -

than the artists are ‘able to diagnose the social ills of the people. : Shadbolt indignantly denies that modern artists are concern- ed only with expressing them- “Modern artists,” he writes, “are desperate to ‘give’: modern society, as complex as it is for all of us, makes it not always easy to see where one can give best.” He asks that we “thank’ God for the

_ experimenters who keep us

~ WIN TH

PLAN 1

Send us $1.00. We send 10- weeks to sell or distribute

vou 3 papers for

‘to three friends. —

TO THE PACIFIC TRIBUNE: — | WOU

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popularly discredited’

: é “Victims of War” .

alive to the changing and chal- jenging world of ideas.” And he points out, correctly, “that tra- dition itself is “not static, but a constantly changing and de- veloping concept .. .”

Shadbolt does not pursue the questions he raises, however, perhaps for fear of the conclus- ions ‘he might be compelled to draw.

Art is inseparable from the.

society in which it is created. The modern artist, creating in a dying capitalist society, may either pursue his art to extinc- tion with the capitalist class itself or “give” himself to the class that will usher in the Socialist future and reunite art with life,

The capitalist class, whose rise and fall can be traced in the successive art traditions of six centuries no longer has any use for art that depicts the social reality, for that would be to expose itself as standing in opposition to the interests of society. So art-must be steril-

ized and’ made “pure,” it must be abstracted from reality and

rendered meaningless.

PLAN 2

‘Send us $1.00 and the names of three friends. We will mail the paper to them for 10 weeks.

APN De thea ee RUAN (3 ieee as Nes SOLS Se rus ar eeates Wamer ys pie PAI eg ae ak Anes a Ny ot

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 17, 1952

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Send us $1.00. If you

Then what of the experi-

menters “who keep us alive to the changing and challenging world of ideas?” An experiment, if it is to have purpose, must be directed to an end, and in

art, as everything else, the end ©

is either decay and death or growth and life. How many of these experiments are any at-

tempt to purify modern art of — even what little remains of its”

form and so set it “free’ of socially recognizable form as well as content? :

The reality of our times de-

» mands that the artist who really —

desires to “give” recognize first

that ‘his purpose is to evoke in ©

those for whom he paints the

concepts and emotions the has Let him

embodied in his art. express through his painting

the reality of the people’s strug-

gles, their aspirations and their dreams and he will find that audience to whom in Shad- bolt’s words, he is “desperate

to ‘give.’ Nor will he have any —

. doubts as to where he can give ‘best. 4

It is a concept we commend to PM’s artists. :

< HAL GRIFFIN. :

REE FRIENDS FOR THE PACIFIC TRIBUNE

PLANS”

have no one to send the

paper to, we will select three people to receive the

paper for ten weeks.

LD LIKE: GO. USE oi) tee

iN ee.

— PAGE $