Page 18 - Studio International - May 1972

immediately trips one of the dancers up, so that Canadian representatives of C.A.R. and the artist
he falls on the ground and bruises himself. The community as a whole in British Columbia,
implication of this manoeuvre is the PlatoniC one art news plans to launch a probe in March 1972.'
that innovations always lead to chaos ... the Questionnaires, designed to unCover the
example perhaps shows that we could call any preconceptions and assumptions that various
series of movements a dance. If however we categories within soCiety have of themselves
started to call it a dance we should have to stop and artists will be sent out to a representative
calling it chaos. The terms "danCe" and "chaos" sample. The replies will be digested and sent
mutually exclude one another, but although we out again. The culmination will be a weekend
cannot call any series of movements either Chaos on which all interested parties, including the
or dance, so the problem of distinguishing dance general public, will continue the probe in
from chaos remains.' Substitute 'sculpture' for person. `Video-and-audio-tape facilities,
`dance' and the paragraph raises questions about stenographers and plain pencil and paper will
many 'works'— inCluding Plackman's —both in this be available for all who wish to record a
show and in contemporary sculpture in general. statement, ask a question or offer data.
Representatives from the federal, provincial
William Pye The Zemran piece seemed inflated
for the sake of flashy extension. No climax and loCal governments will be present... The
and emphasis, hence prediCtability. A certain collected commentaries will be proCessed onCe
slackness was sponsored by the way the domed, more and a digest of the visual and verbal
circular floor units, for example, related to the proceedings will move on from one to the next
larger curved form. Either Could be moved a of four points in Canada.'
foot or so apart, and it wouldn't have mattered.
The philosophy of that counter in the consumer The first National Conference of Canadian
supermarket where the shiniest object sells best. Artist Representation was held in Winnipeg in
A public relations firm would have September. It was attended by twenty artists
recommended it. representing 30o members of C.A.R. and thirty
2800 years of Eskimo art are represented in observers, some private individuals, some
Christopher Sanderson That these three works `Sculpture of the Inuit: Masterworks of the representing arts organizations. Canadian
took three to four years to construct suggested Canadian Arctic'. (Inuit, the people, is the identity and a fair exchange in the economy of
the more personal involvement the artist has had Eskimo name for themselves.) The 405 works the art community were the topics discussed.
in the process of making. They were private, in the exhibition, by 117 Eskimo artists, range Later, a postal vote was held on the motions
projecting an honesty that existed between the from the diminutive prehistoric pieCes of the raised. The aim of C.A.R. is to make the
artist's intention and the sculpture one saw. I Dorset people, through work which shows signs regional and national interests of artists known
liked the blue-orange piece, because the colour of early contact with whalers and traders, to to Government agencies, public funded
was kept similar throughout, Complementing the contemporary sculpture. This long-overdue institutions, the Canada CounCil and the art
form Correspondence. In the other two the exposure was initiated by Doris Shadbolt, journals. It exists `to enable member artists to
colour seemed to fragment the form. Curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery; with the collectively protect their common interests'.
help of the Eskimo Arts Council and a small The meeting coincided with the opening of
Michael Sandle's Monumentum pro Gesualdo
introduced sound, suggested by the bellowing exhibition committee it took four years to the new Winnipeg Art Gallery, Gustavo Da
research. After opening in Vancouver the show
Roza arChitect, by H.R.H. Princess Margaret.
crustaCean shell (or was it the absence of sound will travel to Paris, Copenhagen, Moscow, `The Art of Tom Thomson', a major
I heard ?); a pieCe of 'visualized' Learian verse. Leningrad, London, Philadelphia and MosCow. retrospeCtive exhibition which will travel
The absurdity should have been even more across Canada, has been organized by Joan
extreme, though.
'Halifax/Vancouver : Exchange' proposes 'a Murray, Curator of Canadian Art at the Art
William Tucker His four works had something of complex exchange of ideas in the arts between Gallery of Ontario. A member of the Group of
the immaculate conception. Each had an two cities a Continent apart. Our aim is to Seven, Thomson is popularly known for The
intimate sCale suggesting the need for introduce each to other as thoroughly as possible west wind, but by aCcident of his mysterious
contemplation and private discourse. Not one within the week of activity', writes Roy death more attention has perhaps been paid to
piece of eaCh sCulpture could be moved without Kiyooka, the co-ordinator of the scheme his personal life than to his paintings. The
the whole being different. The statement was as planned to take plaCe this spring. 'The fourteen exhibition includes most of his significant
positive as possible. Ends to ends, angles to participants (seven from each city) will include works, forty canvases, more than Too of his oil
angles, all had a strength given by the artist's image-makers, dancers, musicians, poets and sketChes and a number of unpublished
discretion and sensibility, and a conviction of theatre people. They have been chosen on the water-Colours and pen sketches.
purpose. A rod points off into deep space, the basis of the experimental Context of their Muck-a-Muck draws attention to the art of
same rod continues from an intersection to involvement. It is hoped that we will be able to North-West PacifiC Coast Indian food
delineate and define a plane. At another, a rod present the most radiCal ideas in the current art preparation. The project, sponsored by Ace
rests naturally on top of a similar section which scene.' Gallery of Vancouver to Celebrate the centenary
rises to form two sides of a near right-angled The intention of Artists Probe (the Poetics of British Columbia as a province, will
triangle, the vertiCal missing. Contrasts between of Participation) is stated: 1971 the culminate in an appropriate eating place. The
open and closed; resting on top and fused "cultural" life of Canada seems to be based on gathering, catching, preserving, processing and
together; angles obtuse and aCute; bent and assumptions about "Culture" that are being serving of native foodstuffs will be done by
straight lines. But what was more important was increasingly challenged by artists in our society. Indians. The cook is a Haida from the Queen
that the syntax necessary for allowing this to take An exchange of information on the widest Charlotte Islands. Indian carvers and weavers
place visually had been used knowingly and with possible basis —between artists and have also taken part in the project, carving
degree. A context has been created in which representatives of government, enterprise and feast dishes and weaving mats and
sculptural consideration could take plaCe. q education—is long overdue. To this end the wall-hangings for the interior. q
BARRY MARTIN Vancouver Art Gallery, in Collaboration with CHARLOTTE TOWNSEND