Jo

|
|

|

ge er

has re aren

FP OPA 6

Ann

ELIEVING THAT in art one

man’s Picasso is another’s ©

_... poison, I approached the
Cuban art exhibit now showing
in Toronto rather gingerly. Ac-
tually my interest stemmed per-
haps more from Toronto Star.
literary critic Robert Fulford’s
attack on it than from the in-
Bie values of the exhibit it-
eli

A fast trot around the exhibit
Sent Fulford into a tantrum. The
next. day he published a pronun-
Clamento on socialist realism in
general, Cuban art in particular,
the fraudulent nature of the
Cuban revolution, Chinese maga-
zines, Russian textbooks and
East German paintings. He was
even moved to raise hell with
unnamed Russian poets who, in-
Stead of reading their poetry at

_ &nti-Vietnam-war rallies, should
either attack their government
Or.stay at home and write poet-
Ty, preferably the latter.” Ful-
Ord tilted away at so many
things that he had space for only

_ 2 Scant few sentences about the
_ €xhibit itself.

, However crude and ill-consi-
dered Fulford’s criticism may
ave been, it is, I feel, worth-
while to discuss’ the showing in

€ context of his remarks be-
Cause the viewpoint he holds is
Widely propagated, His criticism
18 not an artistic discussion of
& given. work but a_ political
Toadside that has far more to
do with-the Cold War than the

artistic endeavors of any: artist
Or nation, :

b This attitude is unfortunate
Ccause the Cuban exhibit is

interesting. In the first place it
_ i$ not. a comprehensive collec-

ne of Cuban art, but’ a collec-
‘On of woodblock prints. If
re was anything in advance
Publicity to indicate that the ex-
Subit was & cross section of con-

righteousness”

temporary’ Cuban art it was un-
fortunate. But this does not ex-
cuse the critic for implying that
this exhibit is the sum and sub-
stance of Cuban art today.

The exhibit stands on its own
feet. There are prints displayed
of intensity and power and one
can view: them and see people
and life. Fulford calls it “a col-
lection of lies, hypocracies and
borrowed ideas” and says “it
leans heavily on self-righteous-
ness and hatred.” He cites a
print which depicts an American
soldier crashing down.on Latin
America. There is,also an eagle
in the picture with chains in its
beak. One wonders why this
isn’t a valid way for a Latin
American artist to depict the
United States.

The depiction of squalor and
poverty in South America must
be the lies and hypocracies to
which Fulford alludes. The “self-
and “hatred”
must be the scenes of struggle
and revolt and the steps toward

tary coups and juntas which
emanate from Washington.

Fulford says the Cuban revo-
lution is not authentic and nei-
ther’ is its art. He merely ex-
poses how little he understands
either. Whatever the artistic
merits of any of the prints, and
there’ is an unevenness in qua-
lity, all of them are true. All of
them depict life and all of them

-ean be understood. As such, the

exhibit is like a bit of fresh air.

In America this is the era of
“pop art’, “op art” and looney
abstractions. The loudest voice
is that of the -charletan and
huckster. Art has: become a sta-
tus symbol and conversation
piece to adorn empty lives. In

Cuban woodblock print.

this context, to say, as Fulford
does, “as a style socialist real-
ism has now reached a stage of
extreme decadence”, not only
reflects his own limitations as a
critic but his.closed mind to any
‘expression which is not the “in”
thing with the art establishment
and the diletantes he-panders.

His political bias is all the

land reform and cultural uplift M4 : ee i
which have distinguished the . a N a [ al Nn C rl | C S
Cuban revolution from the mili- .

/

more extraordinary because of
his double standard. Fulford has
a right to criticize and condemn

the.theory and practise of socia-

lism; he can even call it.all a
myth. But: let an artist defend
socialism or support a revolu-
tion.and his art becomes, accord-.
ing to Fulford, politically-moti-
vated. junk,

Fulford has his own dogmas
about the infalibility of capita-
lism and he is welcome to them;
but when these dogmas provide
the framework by which to~
guage artistic merit he is guilty
of_all the sins he ascribes to the
Marxists.

“Communist art,” says Ful-
ford, “doggedly refuses to ac-
knowledge the passing of time.
It remains forever. awful.” We
have a world almost divided in
‘two now. In which section is
‘there ‘an artistic renaissance? It
is a pity that a Canadian baller-

‘ _ ina must journey to Bulgaria to

gain recognition. Perhaps we
should.compare the Canadian film
industry to that of Czechoslova-
kia, or the condition of Cana-

be dian art to that of Cuba.

-‘When-the “‘in” artists of Ame-
rica are busy -painting pictures
of Batman. and. cans of soup it
seems strange to read a. critic
describing another country’s art .
as “fixated at the grade school
level.” :

It may embarrass Fulford when
poets identify themselves with
struggles to end the war in
Vietnam; but that is life. How-
ever one’s tastes. vary and values
differ, art must sooner or later
-come down to the fact of one
man communicating with ano-
ther. If he_has something to say,
the artist says it and thereby ©
enriches the lives of his. fellow
men. If he has nothing to say
and his viewers have nothing
they wish to see or hear, draw-
ings of Batman are good enough. .
In such conditions the critic as-
sumes the role Brendan Behan
once described: “eunuch’s in a
harem”,

The exhibit is. still on display
at the Book World, 72 Gerrard
St. W., and is certainly worth a

visit.
‘—-Rae Murphy

_ Fact: courts side with the bosses!

AN unions apply to the
courts and get injunctions
against the boss? This is

the question that has come up
because judges have shown both
Partiality and prejudice against
Jabor unions by agreeing to
whatever an employer wants,
while denying to labor all rights
to make its own case.

When Mr. Justice G. A. Gale
of the Ontario Supreme Court
Sentenced 25 union men to jail
In the Tilco Plastic case, he
Claimed that unions had equality

with management before the
law,

One union decided to take
Justice Gale’s word for it. When
a Paper company at Espanola,

ntario, tried to increase the
Work week beyond the 40 hours
Stipulated in the union contract,
Local 156 of the United Paper-
Makers and Paperworkers ap-
Plied for an injunction to stop
the company from. boosting the
Workweek to 42 hours.

_ When the bosses ask for in-

Junctions they are granted auto-

Matically in most cases. But in
this case Mr. Justice John
Brooke of the Ontario Supreme
Court reserved his decision.

The company laywer, while
°Pposing the union’s application,

argued that “the concept is
monstrous that a court can reach
into a labor dispute and tell an
employer how to assign work.”
Presumably this same lawyer
does not think it is “monstrous”
for a court to dictate to a union
how to conduct a strike, or
whether its members can take

LABOR SCENE
poner
BRUCE MAGNUSON

the day off with their families
on a statutory holiday.

- What the workers expected to
happen in this case has now
happened, Justice Brooke has
ruled that the dispute between

Local 156 of the United Paper-

makers and Paperworkers and
the Kalamazoo Vegetable Parch-
ment Paper Company Ltd., with
head office at Kalamazoo, Michi-
gan, is not a matter for the
courts, but should be dealt with
by an arbitration board.

In other words, the union’s
application for an injunction to

restrain a big, private corpora-
tion (United States owned and
controlled at that) from violating
provisions of a union contract,
has been denied. The learned
judge also ruled that the court
could not assume jurisdiction on
the union lawyer’s submission
that it would take too long to
constitute a board of arbitration
and obtain a decision from it.

The judge said nothing about
being willing to give guarantees
that an arbitration board — if
established in this case — would
not be interfered with by the
court, as happened in New Brun-

swick lately when an employer.

got an injunction restraining an
arbitration board from handing
down its decision.

‘This particular case, which in-

- volved a dispute between the

Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees and the Hotel Dieu de
!’Assumption Hospital in Monc-
ton, N.B., has opened up wide
the door
courts of admissibility of evi-
dence before arbitration boards,
and, indeed, of the interpretation
of collective agreements.

Maurice Wright, who argued
the union’s case before Mr.
Justice. Brooke two weeks be-
fore, when the judge reserved
judgment, contended. that an ar-

of referral to the

bitration board could give no
adequate relief to the union
even if it agreed with thé
‘union’s contention.

Wright said the members of
the local union were being put
on a 42-hour work week in the
seven-day plant operation con-
trary to the collective agree-
ment, and there was no provi-
sion to pay the local members
beyond a 40-hour week. He said
the parties had agreed to a two-
month trial period for the new
operation, after which they
would negotiate the problems
created.

‘Not all the problems created _

by the new shiftwork operation
have been resolved by negotia-
tion. The union’s lawyer, there-
fore, asked the court to inter-
pret the collective agreement,
determine its effect on the
rights of the parties, and to
_ grant the injunction, which has
now been refused.

Justice. John Brooke’s judg-
ment, in this case has effectively

. served to demolish the. argu-

ment that injunctions are equal-
ly available to management and
labor. Once and for all this test
case makes it abundantly clear
that injunctions in labor disputes
are used. as an_  anti-union
weapon by employers, and

judges, despite all their protesta-
tions to the contrary, are willing
to confine the granting of in-
junctions exclusively to one side
—the side of the boss. —

It is well that this judgement
should come before the national
legislative conference of the
Canadian Labor Congress, called
to convene in Ottawa on Sep-
tember 27-28 to map out a
country-wide compaign for the
abolition of injunctions in in-
dustrial disputes.

The matter of injunctions has

» been by-passed by the Ontario

government so far. The Robarts
government has passed the buck
on the issue to a royal commis-
sion which is to look into all
laws affecting: labor, including
the use of injunctions. This ploy
ought tobe strongly condemned ~

by labor as a delaying manoe-

uvre to prevent overdue action

by the provincial government to —
abolish the use of the injunc-—
tions as a weapon against organ- —
ized workers in this province. At

the same time, the use of this

anti-labor weapon in all pro-
vinces proves that it is a cou-

ntry-wide issue. The CLC con-

ferencé will have the task of

planning country-wide action to

abolish laws that make slaves

out of Canadian workers.

August 12, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5