The A Word

Yes, I like to read the Globe and Mail, sometimes for no other reason than for the sheer amusement at its ignorance (Roy MacGregor’s two or three days in Moose Jaw and the resulting “op ed” he wrote on the Saskatchewan Provincial Election is typical of the coverage we can expect from Canada’s National Newspaper, or as I told the mother of an ex, visiting from Hong Kong, its good that the National Post is around, as the G & M has at least one national newspaper its better than…but I don’t know if I think that anymore).

But there is a worthwhile article in today’s Groping Male, whoops, Globe and Mail, on Brion Gysin: and I’d point out that the show they mention that was organzied by the Art Gallery of Alberta also made an appearance here, at the Mendel.

Nice to see an artist who doesn’t depend on regionalist pandering and who is recognized in a broader context: oh, and did I mention that a new, fairly comprehensive and interesting text, “The Visual Arts in Canada : The Twentieth Century”, edited by Whitelaw, Foss and Paikowsky, only assigns one line – in conjunction with mentioning several other painters – to William Perehudoff, whom the Mendel will be presenting as a (supposedly unfairly) neglected “giant” of Canadian abstraction? And before we begin the knee jerk “those eastern bastards just ignored us”, I’d point out that the Regina Five and other worthwhile artists of the west are given much space……

Pick it up, if you’re an art history student who’d like something other than the local gospel, or continue to read Dennis Reid’s pandering piece of crap, which I seem to remember several art history students ritually burning several years ago…..