Page Six
THE MICKIGAN DAILY
Saturday, July 13, 1968
THE MICHiGAN DAILY Saturday, July 13, 1.968
The destruction of the object
DOkSbOOkS booksbo oks boo
vs. the
By R. A. PERRY
Dada, Surrealism and T
Heritage, by William S.I
bin. The Museum of Mo
Art, Paper: $4.95; Hardco
$9.95.
The world of Dada, w
desired to "humiliate art
'the first decade of this
tury, and of Surrealism, w
sought to elicit a new m
sensitivity in the twenties,
swirls about us in the si
Although the art historian
siders Dada and Surrealis
be art movements which
died into other forms -
art critics are only too h
to find the appropriate c
holes of op, pop, minimal,
penings, mixed media,l
etc. - the movements are
vibrantly alive and strug
their struggles today. Whil
anti-societal, anti-rational
nouncements of the Da
seem mere historical odd
and while today's artists
consciously be seeking
models, techniques, and
ceptual ends, the uncons
problems and needs - the
art fillips - of the two a
same.
The problem is one of
ography. The phenomen
the twentieth century is
cinating; its art objects re
irrelevance. No' doubt it s
quite simplistic in the sh
of the accomplishments o
zanne, Picasso, and Klee t
that as the viability of r
sentationalism waned, a
faced the complex proble
what to paint, William S
bin, the author of the D
Surrealism essay under co
eration, realizes that reli
mythological, and hist
symbols no longer offere
tent possibilities to thea
Rubin watches the twe
century artist move away
these symbols - especial
the disgust of the Great
, but he does not appr
the ironic truth that the
sought not an order wi
these symbols, no matter
anarchic were the artists
face activity and procl
tions, but on the contrary
way of revitalizing the ef
,of the visual world.
*The zeal of Fauvism an
analyses of Cubism wer
Merely reveling in the di
gration of the validity o
object - the final dissol
coming with abstract ex
sionism - but were, a
same time, attempting to
the sanctity of the visua
ject. Dada had all of the p
of a mother clutching a
baby to her breast, for
explosive plastering of o
and words over the canva
page, it truly sought unde
facade of anti-art a way
consecrate, if In the as
the objects of the n
world.
Surrealism, on thet
hand, by striving so mi
to manifestly charge the
world through irrational j
position of images, really
claimed the death knell o
Integrity of an object.
time of surfeit (at lea
those Western countries
support this art), when p
become tiny transistors i
electric society, whenr
loses its import because
everywhere, Surrealist pai
become a slightly erotic
macher-Schlemmer catal
which only those gadgets
feed your private fetishes
your eye.
Thus Warhol's Campbel
can comes as a late ande
stone setting to a funeral
took place at the Satie
teau/Picasso ballet Parade
kami within the object, ho
previously weak in We
eyes, is dead, and only th
mental organization pro
by drugs can reinvoke the
some holiness of any obje
the seance known as thet
tieth century.
It is impressive how, no
ter to what degree manv
tarily seeks the centrifug
the atonality of Schoen
the action painting of P
-he turns back, somewha
tropically, into the center:
ton, describing the aims of
realism in 1924, professed
the group of artists soug
express
the real functioning of
mind, in the absence of
control exercised by rea
and beyond any aestheti
moral preoccupation.
progression of
The method of achieving an For
anarchic system - such was Mer
'heir the paradox - was, as Rubin line
Ru tells us to eschew "perceptual a w
dern starting points" and thus work us l
ver: toward an interior image, that
whether this was conjured Op
whch improvisationally t h r o u g h co
t cin automatism or recorded illu- art
n sonistically from the screen oti
rhich of the mind's eye. mi
ental The methodology did not re- th
still .quire the directed spiritual end jun
xties. of the Buddhist sculptor, who use
con- also gave material form to the Rub
m to image he had ideated after long Run
have meditation, but, without "any wn
and aesthetic or moral preoccupa- Ths
appy tion," the Surrealist painter justn
ubby- sought his images in the Freud- tion
hap- ian context of common images men
light, rising from dreams and free M
still association, images common men
:gling only at best. Without the moral incl
e 'the or spiritual end in this interior inv
pro- image-quest - now that the not
daists symbols of history were im- Th
ities, potent - the modern sculptor tiv
may too often produced works, in
new which, when viewed after clas- th
per- sical Indian sculpture, look like lin
cious dog droppings, or at best, works thi
basic of essentially sentimental an
e the poetry. cdo
Arp admitted, that Dada, by Te
icon- destroying the "hoaxes of rea- va
a of son," yearned to discover an to
fas- "unreasoned order." Yet that eq
ek of order was never more than aes- les
ounds thetic, and it was mere aes- or
adow thetics that the Dadaists tried th
f Ce- so hard to overrule. Rubin may T
o say be right in saying that Rau- serv
epre- chenberg and Duchamp differ ofn
rtists in that the former tries to in- bot
:m of 'tegrate his effects "into an ex- the]
m Ru- perience of art," whilethe lat- bibl
)ada/ ter, arriving at the same end, me
nsid- ironically sought to work away onl
gious, from that end. Rubin does not suc
orical say, however, that Rauchenberg, ger
d po- like Warhol, suffers the same ter
artist. malady but has simply cheer- me
ntieth fully accepted the sickness. in
from In looking back on these art use
ly in works in which the only found diti
War iconography -was one which of
eciate stated the impossibility of an six
artist iconography, one finds: objects, mal
thout things, curiosae. Is it not apt, co-c
how then, that we have come to in- tex
sur- flate art works into our symbols ally
lama- of ,special sanctity? qui
some * * * Sur
ficacy William S. Rubin's catalog to sta
the Surrealism and Dada exhib- uali
d the it, which opened at the Museum ico
e not of Modern Art in March and ato
s not which will be in Chicago during art
sdte- the last quarter of this year, to e
f the purports to be not only a guide this
lution to the exhibit but a "concise M
.pres and comprehensive" exegesis on ord
t the these two art- movements. The ped
etain blurb from the N. Y. Times that lite
ato- the essay "must from now on hei
dad be the authoritative reference" ofa
dead will lure many enthusiasts to a tha
Ln Its book that certainly will not fan tion
bjects their curiosity or ardor. arti
s and It would be polite to call Mr. gon
r the Rubin's catalog dry and cau- my
tu r- tious; it would be more accur- ing
ylum' ate, unfortunately, to call it doe
atural boring and pedantic a g
To begin with, the author, tre
other who is Curator of Painting and fou
ghtily Sculptor at the MMA has the voic
visual singular ability to entomb po- ed.
uxta- tential humor and to vitiate a selv
t pro- work's vitality in high-toned one
f the and flaccid pseudo-analysis. bra
example' in response to
et Oppenheim's funny fur-
d cup, saucer, and spoon -
rk which cannot but make
augh - Mr. Rubin tells us
penheim's classic work
ifused the texture of one
ible with the form of an-
ter; here the fur, which
ght provoke pleasant tac-
sensations on a coat, be-
nes disconcerting in con-
iction with objects of oral
in's style is enervated by its
sophisticated detachment:
at logic could be used to
ify the killing and mutila-
of millions revolted some
of sensibility." Indeed!
any of Rubin's pronounce-
ts follow that art historian
ination to boast discoveries 1
words that really tell us
ing:
.e absence of aerial perspec-
e and, above all, modeling
the round, combined with
e abstract nature of these
ear schemas, i m p e d e d
ree - dimensional illusions
d kept the forms clinging
se to the picture plane.
e environments of Del-
ux's visions vary but tend
ward either a Surrealist
uivalent of the antique Hel-
ism of Puvis de Chavannes,
the Flemish counterpart of
e Chiricoesque piazza.
his MMA publication Will
e best the serious student
modern art, for it contains
h an excellent chronology of
Movement and an extensive
iography. Several important
n, however, are mentioned
y in the chronology, men
h as Bunuel and Satie, the
minal influence of the lat-
being totally ignored. No
ntion is made of Surrealism
the films, of its extensive
in advertising, of such od-
es as the Marx Brothers.
f the 300 illustrations, only
are in color, and the re-
ining, small but well printed,
ordinate closely with the
t. The illustrations incident-
'give little indication of the
te erotic aspects of Dada and
realism. At one point Rubin
tes that "the myth of sex-
ity would become the only
ographic common denomin-
r in all Dada and Surrealist
and literature" but he fails
ver prove or expatiate upon
conclusion.
r. Rubin's entire well-
ered essay remains dull and
antic not merely because of
rary style but also because
never finds the movement
art history anything more
n some well-calculated, ra-
al decision-making by the
st who, seeing what has
e before, says "what would
logical next move be." Read-
this well-illustrated essay
s offer many insights and
good brief history of the
ids involved, but this reader
nd its approach and its
e dehumanizing and limit-
Only when the artists them-
es were allowed to speak didI
begin to feel the blood,E
ins, and poetry of the art.
the art
The prejudicial
book, the, rac
By STEPHEN H. WILDSTROM
The Algiers Motel Incident, by John
Hersey. Cloth: Knopf, $5.95; Paper:
Bantam, $1.25.
The reviewer helped cover the 1967
Detroit riot as a newsman for the As-
sociated Press and filed the first na-
tional story on the killings at the Al-
giers ,Motel. Later, he covered the
murder examination of Patrolmen
Robert Paille and Ronald August.-Ed.
Detroit Recorder's Court is housed in
a dirty grey, stolid building across an
alley from Police Headqutarters-a rela-
tionship of more than physical signifi-
cance. The court handles all criminal
cases (except juvenile and traffic of-
fenses) originating in the City of Detroit..
Its judges are elected on nonpartisan
ballots,' but their positions are largely
sinecures, since only rarely does an in-
cumbent judge lose a bid for re-election.
Recorder's judges almost never go on to
higher judicial posts; similarly, judges
rarely come to the bench following dis-
tinguished legal or judicial careers.
As in most municipal criminal courts
in America, equal justice under law at
Recorder's is considerably more equal if
you are white and considerably less equal
if you are poor. Like all U.S. courts, Re-
corder's is required to appoint counsel for
indigent defendants.
Despite much talk by the Detroit Bar
Association about setting up a reputable
public defender system, court appointed
attorneys in Detroit generally come from
a remarkable, informal institution known
locally as the Clinton Street Bar, named
for the street which runs alongside the
courthouse.
The Clinton Street Bar is made up
of a number of hack attorneys who have,
for varied reasons, been reduced to living
off court-assigned cases. The Clinton
Street Bar is such a disreputable opera-
tion that at least once last summer, two
of its members came to fisticuffs in a
courtroom over the right to -serve as a
court-appointed counsel in a riot case.
It is against this dismal backdrop that
the incredible tangle in the thread of
justice trailing from the Algiers Motel
incident must eventually be unwound.
It was almost a year ago that three
young blacks-Auburey Pollard, Carl
Cooper and Fred Temple-were killed by
close-range shotgun blasts at the Algiers
Motel on the fourth day of the Detroit
riot. The original police report on the
deaths said the three were suspected
snipers and had been killed in a gun
battle with police, although the report
made no mention of the weapons one
would expect to be seized when alleged
snipers are killed or captured by police.
The Police Department's version of the
affair has now been thoroughly discredit-
ed, largely through diligent reporting by;
Joseph Strickland of the Detroit News,
by Kurt Luedtke, Bill Serrin, Gene Goltz
and Barbara Stanton of the Detroit Free
Press, and now by John Hersey. The
evidence is now overwhelming that at
least two of the dead-Temple and Pol-
lard-were deliberately murdered by law
officers, and that other occupants of the
Algiers Motel Manor House were physi-
cally, and mentally tortured before being
released. The death of Cooper is an enig-
ma that will probably never be solved.
Since reporters, doing work that should
have been done by the police and the
prosecuting attorney, have brought the
case to light, there have been three
preliminary examinations, two reviews
and one trial (for felonious assault-not
murder) in Recorder's Court, one federal
grand jury investigation and one hearing
in U.S. District Court-and no convic-
tions.
In another one ofd those strange twists
of the legal process one has come to re-
gard as the norm in this case, the press
has been far more an !active participant
in, rather than an observer of the legal
mess resulting from the case. The first
involvement of the Wayne County Prose-
cutor's Office in the affair came when
reporter Strickland took an assistant
prosecutor with him when he interviewed
a witness-Robert Greene-in Kentucky.
Without the initial press. reports, there
might never have been an Algiers Motel
Incident as far as the public was con-
cerned; it would have remained merely
the shooting of three snipers in a gun
battle with police.
Now John's Hersey's most remarkable
book-The Algiers Motel Incident-has
been injected into the controversy. On
Monday, Recorder's Court Judge Robert
Colombo (a jurist distinguished primarily
by his career as legal counsel for the
Detroit Police Officers Association) ad-
journed the first-degree murder trial of
suspended- Patrolman Ronald August-
charged with killing Pollard-until Janu-
ary because of the publication of Hersey's
"highly prejudicial" book, a work which
Colombo admits he has not, read.
How Colombo could rule the book pre-
judicial, and at the same time take a
swing at the press which has been so
instrumental in executing what little jus-
Algiers incident backdrop
tise has been done in this case, is beyond
my comprehension. At no time does
Hersey assume the guilt of any individual.
At no time does he ask, in the manner
assumed by the Cleveland Press in the
Sam Sheppard case, "Why isn't Ronald
August, or Robert Paille, or David Senak,
in jail?"
Rather, Hersey has done two things in
this book and done them exceedingly
well. First he has put together all the
pieces that have always been a matter
of public record-transcripts of court
testimony, sworn depositions, statements
made to the police-and thus has as-
sembled most of the pertinent evidence
in the case (although Hersey, like every-
one else, apparently did not get his hands
on a statement made by Patrolman Paille
to the Homicide Bureau in which he ad-
mitted he killed a man at the Algiers.
It is possible, however, that Hersey did
see this document, which was ruled in-
admissable evidence at the first murder
hearing, but declined to include it for
fear of prejudicing the trial).
Second, through extensive interviews
with the Algiers survivors ind relatives
of the victims, he has painted a horrify-
ing picture of three young men beaten
down, brutalized and eventually mur-
dered by the racist society which sur-
rounds them.
rst society
If Hersey points an accusing figure at
anything more specific than racist white
society, it is at the tortured legal pro-
cesses of Detroit Recorder's Court, a court
in which a poor black man can be ar-
raigned, examined, tried and sentenced
in a matter of days but in which a white
policeman can evade trial for months
and months on end. A court where: an-
other judge, Robert DeMascio, seemed
more concerned with the arrangement
of tables in his courtroom than in ex-
amining two police officers for murder.
It seems likely that Judge Colombo's
outburst was aimed not so much at pro-
tecting the accused from pretrial pre-
judice as a means at getting back at an
author who pointed an angry finger at
Recorder's unspeakable due process rer-
ord and at a press which forced justice
in a case the police, prosecutor and courts
would sooner have seen forgotten.
It is to be hoped that if Judge Colombo
actually takes the matter of Hersey's
book before the American Bar Associa-
tions' Committee on Free Press and Fair
Trial, someone will inform the good
judge that the Michigan Supreme Court
saw fit to rule 8-0 that that committee's
Reardon Report is null and without ef-
fect in Michigan courts.
It is also tq be hoped that if the Amer-
ican Civil Liberties Union chooses to
consider a possible violation of Patrol-
man August's civil liberties resulting from
publication of The Algiers Motel Incident,
it will also consider the ultimate viola-
tion of the liberties of Carl Cooper, Fred
Temple and Auburey Pollard, as well as
the continuing violation of civil liberties
resulting from police harassment of the
survivors of the Algiers incident ani the
families of the victims.
And it is to be hoped that publication
of Hersey's book, helped along by Judge
Colomobo's enormous publicity boost, will
bring a massive outcry from the public.
The Algiers Motel Incident may con-
vince good citizens once and for all that
"equal justice under law," when applied
to America's lower courts, is a cherished
myth, but a myth still. If the book has
that effect, it will be of enormous public
service, since the, massive inequalities of
law are a, bayonet in the stomach of the
black community, a bayonet which thust
be removed if there is to be hope for a
better and more paeceful society.
Even the book has no social Impact,
which, in view of the intensity of Her-
sey's work, seems unlikely, The Algiers
Motel Incident will remain as a master-
piece of documentary technique.
IF_______
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Y *
Fine Clothing
and Furnishings
at Reductions of
VAN BOVEN
Semi-Annual
SALE
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
On the Campus-
Corner State and William Sts.
Terry N. Smith, Minister
Ronald C. Phillips, Assistant
Summer Worship Service at 10:00 a.m.
Sermon: "Faith for Our Times," Raymond
J. Barstow preaching.
Church School through Sixth Grade.
HURON HILLS BAPTIST CHURCH d
Presently meeting at the YM-YWCA
Affiliated with the Baptist General Conf.
761-6749
Rev. Charles Johnson
9:45 a.m.-U Fellowship Bible Discussion.
11:00 a.m.-"And in Conclusion . . ." (He-
brews 13).
7:00 p.m.-The Norman Schottins, Africa
Inland Mission,
8:30 p.m.-Campus and Careers Fellowship.
UNIVERSITY LUTHERAN CHAPEL
(The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod)
1511 Washtenaw
Alfred T. Scheips, Pastor
Sunday at 9:45 a.m-Service, with Holy Com-
munion. Sermon by Pastor Scheips, "The
Cost of Discipleship."
Sunday at 6:00 p.m.-Supper, followed by talk
by Dr. David Kopplin, "To Be the Self
That One Truly Is."
Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.-Second in discus-
sion series, "Studies in Christology."
Wednesday at 10:00 p.m.-Midweek Service,
Holy Communion, Dr. William Kohn, of St.
Louis, Guest Preacher.
.{
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
1432 Washtenow Ave.
Phone 662-4466
'Ministers: Ernest T. Campbell, John
Waser, Harold S. Horan
R.
SUNDAY
Worship at 9:00 and 10:30 a.m.
Presbyterian Campus Center located at the
Church.
PACKARD ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH
Southern Baptist Convention
1 131 Church St.
761-0441
Rev. Tom Bloxam
9:45 a.m.-Sunday School.
11:00 a.m.-Morning Worship.
6:30 p.n.-.Training Union.
7:30 p.m.-Evening Worship.
ST. AIDEN'S EPISCOPAL CHAPEL
(North Campus)
1679 Broadway
9:00 a.m.-Morning Prayer and Holy Com-
munion.
11:00 a.m.--Coffee in the lounge.
ST. ANDREWS EPSICOPAL CHURCH
306 N. Division
8:00 a.m.-Holy Communion.
9:00 a.m.--Holy Communion and Sermon.
11:00 a.m.-Morning Prayer and Sermon.
7:00 p.m.-Evening Prayer.
UNIVERSITY REFORMED CHURCH
1001 East Huron
Phone 662-3153
Ministers: Calvin S. Malefyt, Paul Swets
10:30 a.m. - "Coping With Stress," Rev.
Calvin Falefyt.
7:00 p.m.--'Finding Your Thing," panel.
FIRST UNITED METHODIST
CHURCH and WESLEY
FOUNDATION
At State and Huron Streets
Phone 662-4536
Hoover Rupert, Minister
Eugene Ransom, Campus Minister
Bartlett Beavin, Associate Campus Minister
SUNDAY
9:00 and 11:15 a.m.-Worship Services.
Sermon: "Christian Identity in Divine Wor-
ship," Dr. Rupert.
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FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
1917 Washtenaw Ave.
Dr. Erwin A. Goede, Minister
Phyllis $t. Louis, Minister of Education
10:00 a.m.-"The Pollution .of Purity,"
Michael Abbott, guest speaker.
20
or more
G.
CAMPUS CHAPEL
1236 Washtenaw
Donald Postema, Minister
Services at 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Guest
minister will be Rev. Hugh Koops.
LUTHERAN STUDENT CENTER
AND CHAPEL
National Lutheran Council
Hill St. at S. Forest Ave.
Rev. Edwin Danielsen, Pastor
SUNDAY
10:30 a.m.-Worship Service
4,
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FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST,
SCIENTIST
1833 Washtenow Ave.
MISTER
fAMIIV RFSTAIIRAUT
All items chosen for this sale are from
r- T111I
our reg.ular stagk.
r rI t1
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
W. Stadium at Edgewood
Across from Ann Arbor High
SUNDAY
10:30 a.m.-Worship Services. Sunday
SchoolI
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