| 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

PEAS Petey

kK ENCLOSE Bey ot

Nate So my BAe
i Prcldress. (es
PSS

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

wy : : ie}

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 $