i

We've heard a lot about So-
cialist realism. Now a fine ex-
hibit of Capitalist Realism can

’ be seen at Hart House Gallery,

Toronto. William Kurilek has
mounted “The Burning Barn,”
his second series of oils giving
his view on contemporary social
and moral problems. Any display
of realist painting sends me—the
symbolic language is compre-
hendable thereby letting the
viewer get down to the brass
tacks of figuring out the mes-
sage and if the artist effectively
gets it across. This is the kind
of painting that can reach a wide
audience, not just a few cogno-
scienti of the abstract swirl and
dash. But who wants Kurilek to
reach a wide audience? These
bright, understandable canvasses

shout out so much stereotyped
anti-communism and fundamen-
talist religion that I am glad that
contemporary art under capital-
ism does not belong to the peo-
ple who stay away from the gal-
leries in droves.

Kurilek has adopted the un-
fashionable realist style because
he wishes to communicate defi-
nite ideas to a lot of people. He
is motivated primarily by reli-
gion, seeing himself as St. John
the Baptist preaching to us from
the wilderness, against the moral
confusion of 20th century man.
In his manifesto — anthropolo-
gists and other intellectuals have
muddied the moral waters of our
times, leaving it to Kurilek to
cleanly divide the world into
strict lines of good and bad.

Stars of tomorrow

A secondary music school for young talents at Alma-Ata, the

capital of Kazakhstan. It was named after the People’s Artist of the
USSR Gulyash Baiseitova, the first professional singer in the re-
public, the pride of national Kazakh opera.

The terms of studies is 11 years, in which time the future “star”
musicians will acquire general and professional education, Tuition

and boarding are free.

There are 365 pupils at the school at present. They are children
of shepherds, miners, grain-growers and office employees. There
are piano, string, wind and folk instruments classes. A special

section trains music critics.

- Some capitalist realism

The worst of the worst is com-
munism. I almost thought the
painter was a D.P. because of
the Ukrainian themes running
through several paintings. But
he was born in Alberta so the
Ukraine depicted here is strictly
as he imagines it. Before the
1939 reunion of the Western
Ukraine with the Soviet Union it
is depicted in the lush, green
“Freedom,” subtitled “Free Uk-
rainian Mountaineers.” (Kurilek
is big on multiple titles. They
help put the moral across).
Horses and humans alike live
happily in the: shadow of the
church in this prosperous, Chris-
tian, capitalist: paradise.

Life under socialism is seen
in “Cross Section of Vinnitsia
in the Ukraine, 1939.” (“‘Oppres-
sion”). This society is split level.
Above in a park of rest and cul-
ture, complete with busts of
Stalin and Timoshenko, strolling
police suspiciously look the
crowd over, Beneath the green
park and red flags lie four mass
graves. It is suggested that they
like us build their parks on gar-
bage, only the sanitary land fill
of Socialism is human beings.
Kurilek is a master framer and
certainly knows How to comple-
ment his pictures. Here, as a
pop-art touch, a quarter inch
dowling has been cleverly fitted
together to form prison bars over
the whole canvass. It has to be
seen to be believed.

A society in its later stages
of decay will produce an artist
like Kurilek who while repelled
by the poverty, dehumanization,
waste and destruction of life
around him cannot see beyond
the level of individual. respon-
sibility in changing that world.
Only a revolution, Socialism, can
solve the social problems bother-
ing this artist, but for false rea-
sons, Socialism is closed to him.
He turns to religion, hoping that
in some mystic way, through the
change of heart of mankind, that
good will triumph.

His religion is naive and sim-
plistic, absolutely untrue. He ob-
viously believes everything that
he reads in religious tracts, and
creates utterly shocking pictures
of that which goes against his
fundamentalist good-book. In
“Unwanted Citizen in the Just
Society” (“Abortion”), a foetus
is being dumped into the hospital
garbage pail. In the background
we see the back of of the wo-
man, legs spread, feet in the air,
lying on the delivery table. A
masked obstetrician stands im-
personally over her. Major color
focus—the bloody red foetus in
the foreground, contrasting to
hospital greens and _ whites.
Pages from an_ anti-abortion
pamphlet fill the space between
inner and outer frames.

Vietnam is dealt with in the
diptych “Love and Hate.” “Love”
or ‘Medical Missionaries in Af-
rica” shows Uncle Tom-type
blacks being put back together
again by the benevolent, white
doctor. “Hate,” subtitled “Viet
Cong Make an Example of Sus-
pected Collaborators” shows the
Cong sadistically ripping yellow
bodies apart. All is portrayed
with the utmost fidelity from the
smiles and crosses of the black
nurses in “Love” to the chopped
off fingers and disembowelled
bodies of “Hate.” (The U.S. State
Department will probably pur-
chase this one.)

Stylistically Kurilek is com-_

pletely accomplished. His reli-
gion permeates the clear, bright
colors. His people, almost com-
pletely working class and. farm-
ers, are very strongly and simply
depicted.’ Kurilek aims himself
at such people who would I think

Probably the most fitting
introduction to the theme of
this column would be a par-
ody on Lewis Carroll’s rollick-
ing poem,-

“The time has come

the Walrus said,
To speax of many
thin: ”

Of Reds and taxes and
NATO claims,

And Red-baiters doing
their “thing.”

The story is cast in the
beautiful city of Port Alberni,
nestling like a jewel in a set-
ting richly endowed by Mo-
ther Nature.

In terms of population and
its high contribution to the
GNP—to the uninitiated, the
Gross National Product—Port
Alberni is a workingman’s
town. It is also, sad to relate,
a monopoly-dominated com-
munity, not an uncommon
“contradiction” these days in
our modern “free enterprise”
mode of life.

As we said, Port Alberni is
a charmingly beautiful com-
munity—if one can stand
pungent smells with Objets
d’Art. This odoriferous smell
emanates from large-scale
monopoly production of pulp,
raw pulp, hot and steaming.
Soon you get used to it.

But the visitor newly arriy-
ed in Port Alberni, admiring
its gorgeous beauty from the
top of the hill, gradually be-
coming conscious of this of-
fensive odour and unaware of

to examine the heels of his
shoes, fearful that he (or she)
may have inadvertently “step-
ped into” romething. Happily
nothing of that kind has hap-
pened, and the visitor like the
resident gets accustomed to
monopoly’s odoruous _side-
contribution to pollution.

There are other smells of
course, some which crop up
on a continent-wide volume
when some vital issue pro-
jects itself into an otherwise
complacent atmosphere.

For instance just recently
the Communist Party of Can-
ada published a little “black
book” as some have termed
it, entitled “Why Canada
Should Quit NATO,” by
William Kashtan, leader of
the Communist Party, This
little book has already
had a wide circulation among
parliamentary, civic and other
public bodies and individuals
across. Canada. In most cases
it has been sympathetically
received.

On the whole, because of
the people’s unfulfilled needs
in every sphere of social
health, hospitals, education,
schools, etc., etc., the general
idea is wideiy prevalent that
instead of pouring some $40-
billion dollars at the rate of
$1.5 billion annually for a so-
called NATO “defense” which
will be no defense at all in a
nuclear holocaust, that this

its origin, furtivly peers down

vast amount of money would
be much better spent if useg
to meet the pressing needs of
the Canadian people—always
denied by governments on the
excuse that “there is no mon-
ey available” for such trivial
matters?

“In due course,” as Mac. |
kenzie King used to say, this
little book with an accom.
panying letter from C.P. pro.
vincial leader Nigel Morgan, |
came before the Port Alberni
city fathers.

Then a new and not un-
common stench blew up, a
stench which make mono-
poly’s hot pulp aroma smell
like attar of roses—the stench
of a ressurected anti-commun-
ist red-baiter.

Port Alberni’s Mayor Fred
Bishop began his anti-com-
munist manure spreading ora-
tion by questioning the “sin-
cerity” of the Communist
Party on the issue of NATO
or anything else. With such
an auspicious start the rest
was easy; “I wish I could be-
lieve it was municipal aid or
peace they were concerned
about. They even have the
audacity to defend the occu-
pation of Czechoslovakia, and
at the same time talk about
democracy and freedom. The
sooner the people of Canada
wake up to what this party
stands for, the better it will
be,” and so on and so forth.
That “wake-up” touch makes
sense but in His Worship’s
case, purely accidental.

Quite innocently of course,
since amateur and profession- |
al red-baiters in the service |
of monopoly and war are in-
variably stupid despite a
“learned” exterior, Port Al-
berni’s chief magistrate laid
bare in his anti-communist
diatribe, the putrid ideology
upon which NATO and its
standing theat to peace, here
and in other lands, is predi-
cated upon. In this, also quite
innocently, he confirms the
opinions on NATO set down
in this little “black book” al-
though he probably doe‘a't
know it. }

In order to assist His Wor-
ship extricate himself from
the dual odours of monopoly
pulp and McCarthyite red-
baiting which he seemingly
loves to wallow in, I respect-
fully draw his attention to
another poem, this time from
Tennyson, which is the ulti-
mate in the Communist Par-
ty’s unending struggle for the
elimination of NATO—and all
similar war conspiracies and
pacts

“Till the war drums

throbbed no longer,

And the battle flags are

furled.

In the Parliament of Man,

The Federation of the

World.”

That includes beautiful Port

Alberni too, your “worship.
_—

be attracted by the warmth and
respect shown them.

Herein lies the danger of Kuri-
lek. With his realist imagery, he
could appeal to a lot of people.
Already, he is represented in
many Canadian galleries. Yet

. while. disturbing and arousing . thought and shqujd be see? a
people, he can only confuse them runs until Mar. 29th. Ken Deat_

with his poisonous anti-com ©
munism and simplistic, religious _
moralizing, thereby keep!?
them from the truer understand
ing of our world that such
art could create.

The show is worth some