les

Ron Falcioni
ART REVIEW

erhaps the only way for
a critic to look objec-
tively at the art of the
present is to regard it as if it
were that of the past __
especially in Vancouver,
where it frequently is.
In the opinion of many, art -
critics are a deservedly despised
- lot who presume, rightly or
“ wrongly, that.the collective end
- \ OF purpose of “Art” is more
: important than the creative.
impulses nurtured in the hearts of
“the artists whose works will ulti-
~. mately exemplify that purpose.
_, - On the other hand, as the
~ artists themselves often justly
“point out, the critics, if they can-
“= not make that “Art,” can‘only ©
derive a measure of devious sat-
~-isfaction from calling its scores
“and attempting to dictate its
"rounds: ,
"== among whom, of course, |
include myself — are mostly.
: informed observers sitting on the
. sidelines like academically con-.

: - ditioned watchdogs, predictably
e

commending or castigating ast
“case may be

“That we number no Clement
. Greenbergs or Harold

* Rosenbergs among our ranks is

In fact, the critics near-at-hand :

evolution.)

perhaps as good an indication as
any that Vancouver is less a city
of real trail-blazers than it is one
of resourseful followers.

(Not that there isn't a suffi-
cient abundance of “quality art”
in evidence to keep all con-
cerned bustling with activity, but
rather that by and large, it takes
its cue from the outside and is
recognizably derivative.)

What is more, those who real-
ly crack the whip in the local
three-ring-cireus of art are usual-
ly far less visible to the general
public than the humble scribes
busily evaluating the scene for
the local newspapers.

Given that the new year is
down time with litle to offer on
the local gallery circuil, it may
prove uselul to seize this appor-
tunity and dispense a little ele-
inentary art history.

{f nothing else, it may thereby .

enlarge upon the recent admoni-
tion made here, ostensibly clis-
paraging postmodernist “installa-
tionism,” particularly as it per-
tains to our beloved Presentation
House Gallery,

To begin with, Modern Art

"was alreacly over a century old at

the time of its supposed demise
roughly two decades ago.

(Those up on their art history
will realize Modernism succeed-
ed 19th century Historicism more
than a century after the inception
of the modern world, an event
historians contend was marked
jointly by the invention of liberty

and the advent of the industrial

Late Modernism, for the most
part the manifestation of Abstract
Expressionism (anJ according to
some largely the ernetration of
New York art critic, Clement
Greenberg), was essentially a

contemporary counterpart of the
popular post-war philosophical
phenomenon known as
Existentialism, imported like
Surrealism from Europe,

In keeping wilh the by-now
firmly entrenched pattern of
dialectical succession in the arts,
Pop Art with its low-brow
iconography became the prime
contender for the position vacat-
ed by Abstract Expressionism,
and —though rapidly displaced
in the further-clebilitating wake of
Minimatism and Conceptualism
-~ paved the way for
Postmodernism,

Pop Art did so ina number of
ways: it reaffirmed the primacy of
that message whose importance,
once again, obviously lay in
more than the creative medium
alone; it established the phato-
graph as a valid and even prima-
ry conveyance for that message;
and, in so doing, it paved the
way for the adoption and imple-
mentation in the early ‘70s of the
latest philosophical vogue to
emanate from Europe, namely
Structuralism,

This dialectically logical suc-
cessor to Existentialism replaced
a fallible, even morbid, human
subjectivity with a calculating,
equation-cold objectivity.

Whereas Existentialism
attempted only to understand art
within the context of the “dilem-.
ma of modern man,”
Structuralism, in all its interdisci-
plinary diversity (and through the
intervention of the academic
operatives into whose hands jit

” had fallen), undertook.to manip-

ulate it, to impose on art a sense
of purpose or agenda. ,
Thus, rather than merely
occupying themselves with the
interpretation of art, the new aca-

Gospel group to perform locally

From page AB

- and Rock ‘n! Roll exploded dur-

“ing the same decade. There was
“x much energy percolating.

«For a taste‘of ‘the gospel'quar- :

tet-sound in its purest ‘form turn
to The Sermon, by The Original
__ Five Blind Boys Of Alabama. The
v'release surfaced on compact disc
~ fast -year as part of the Specialty
“« Records. Legends of Gospel
“series. ay :
“-.Twenty-five-of the 27 tracks

included-on the collection are.

were recorded between 1952

* and 1957,

The music is direct, fervent

‘and visceral.
.. t's all in the moaning and

shouting, the syncopated. rhythm
and’a holy rolling wave of mar-

. vellous vacal harmony.

A hum speaks volumes.
: They are the ones who “came
up on nothing but mother wit

‘and Jesus.”

The language is thal of apoca-
lypse and judgment.
The goal is release.

Singers in the 1930s_ in
Birmingham, Alabama, the Blind
Boys have been doing it for more

than 50 years.

Last year's release, Deep
River, has been nominated for a
Grammy award,

The group plays Glad Tidings
Church on Friday, Feb. 11.

demics inadvertently assumed
control,

{ Modernism had striven by
slow degrees to divest art of the
burden and confinement of
social responsibility,
Postmodernism was determined
to reverse the process in one fell
swoop.

In other words, it sought to
make art answerable for issues
even our politicians could pot
account for,

And what has the new intel-
lectual elite wrought for all its
efforts to subvert Modernism?

Despite its considerable
resources, Pastmadernism is a
movement so Gereft of means,
that, in order to sustain itself, it
must resort to self-cannibalism,in
the guise of “appropriation” and
“deconstruction.”

In theory it denigrates the
value of inclividuiality, originality
and even intentional meaning in

art and ultimately rationalizes the

validity of artistic plagiarism...

In its opposition to Modernism

it celebrates marginal social
causes at the cost of marginaliz-
ing the value of purely aesthetic
pursuits. Madernism, in its advo-
cacy of art-for-its-own-sake, may
have been irresponsible but it
was essentially innocuous.
Postmodernism in its enlist-
ment of art in the service of -
social causes is potentially as .
detrimental to art as it is suppos-

COMING SOON: THE TONY

AWARD WINNING MUSICAL

edly beneficial to society — as
the bludgeon-tactic proselytism
of Artropolis 93 will readily indi-
cate,
But despite all this, the real
problem with Postmodernism lies
in the fact that ithas already
degencrated, like all its predeces-
sors, into repetitive patterns of -
expression. Lg
Nat only are its exploits
becoming increasingly pre-
dictable but they typically reflect
the tiresome politically correct
ideals of the new elite that origi- |
nated il, And too often without
demonstrating any of the ingenu-
ity or craftsmanship we have
come to associate with the pro-
duction of art of lasting value.

PERU

TRAVELOGUE FILM ‘|
_ narrated live onstage © |" ”

_ by Buddy Hatton |.
NORTH VAN. CENTENNIAL THEATRE
Tues. Feb. 8-6 & 8:30 pm.
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TRCRERY [7 LATE

ART IN PUBLIC PLACES is a program of the N.V.

Community Arts Council showing works of emerg-
ing and amateur artists in the two N.V. Municipal

Halls.

You are invited to submit an application for jurying
to the N.V.C.A.C. 333 Chesterfield Street, North
Vancouver, V7M 3G9, no later than Feb. 23rd...

Be fied

: PARK ROYAL

NEI

For application forms call 988-6844

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