Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1978. július-december (32. évfolyam, 27-50. szám)
1978-07-06 / 27. szám
Thursday, July 6. 1978. JULY 1. JULY 28. 1892. Iron and steel workers strike at Homestead Pa.During strike Pinkerton guards shot and killed 18 strikers. JULY 2. 1892. People’s Party /Populists/ met in first national convention in Omaha, Neb. # JULY 4. 1776. Continental Congress proclaimed the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”- From the Declaration of Independence. AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE PROCLAIMED. 1770 JULY 5. 1853. Tivadar Csontváry Koszta , noted Hungarian painter was born. Tivadar Csontvári Koszta: SELF PORTRAIT JULY 22. * ; 1849. Birthday of Emma Lazarus, Jewish Poet, author of the sonnet inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Bring me your tired, your poor, • Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” EMMA LAZARCS BORN. 1848 1868. Fourteenth Amendment to Constitution was declared ratified. 1848. Women’s Rights Convention opened at Seneca Falls, N.Y. called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Convention adopted a Declaration of Women’s Rights and called for woman suffrage. KATE HELSY - Sunny Morning “Hungarian bom Kate Helsy’s pencil and conte crayon drawings on tinted paper are surrealistic works that possess a pensive quality. Her dark, delicately handled line and modeling of her forms grow into muted tonalities that invoke a strangely intense personal world,a world created entirely from the artist’s inner vision. Helsy constantly searches lor poetic and symbolic discoveries. These symbolic discoveries have a brooding quality that creates a vast sense of mystery. Helsy grows a garden of dreams and memories”. — Roko Gallery. TRANSFER AMENDMENT (cont. from page 7.) to our Nation’s future. A more serious potential threat to our national security lies with seven million jobless adults and three million frustrated teenagers than with the visions conjured up by Pentagon advocates during budget debate. The Transfer Amendment begins the process of re-ordering our spending priorities toward more humane purposes. The Economic Adjustment Act helps ensure that this process is a smooth one, with the economic and employment shifts to domestic, peaceful programs made in a non-disruptive manner. The unmet needs of older Americans would, for example, be addressed by the Transfer Amendment’s employment and human service components. Some 90.000 jobs'would be created for low-income unemployed Americans who are 55 years of age or older. It would also open many more senior centers, improve and expand home health services and provide special assistance to the chronically ill and disabled. We would make significant progress toward the 'goals established in the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation were we to adopt the Transfer Amendment. The 275.000 additional jobs it would create under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act /CETA/ would move us in the direction of full employment. EMERY BÁLINT: BUSINESS AND “ART NOUVEAU” Although worrying about the future is a kind of occupational ailment of many of the artists, as they are kin to prophets, let’s go back to the present- to the art of our youth. As we are in the midst of it, the music for instance is earpiercing, in art of painting, eyesticking; it is hard to listen and look at it in calmness and in perspective and it is even harder to be objective. Still, there is one positive thing we are able to perceive and that is that the art of painting of the new generation is not new. In fact, it is a retrogression. The art championed by the- youth is not only presentable, but even popular with the Establishment, which never happened before in the history of any new art. That alone should make their art dubious. It is not a step forward. In painting it is regression, ruminating over and into the “Art Nouveau” of the Victorian age, to the Preraffaelits, to Tiffanys, to decorativeness with floating curves for the sake of floating curvily, to lettering, impossible to decipher. Drawings are of the old Police Gazette’s style and added to this is the resurrection of the hoary triumvirates of the troyka: the svmmetry, continuitv and repetition. k There you have the old “Papa Knows Best” art of the turn of the century. The business establishment was quick to realize its commercial value as an old, familiar, friendly acquaintace and now the factories are pouring out fabrics with floating curves in psychedelic colors. /Which, by the way, is a misnomer, because they have nothing to do with real psychedelic experiences./ The art of our so-called young generation is important, not only for them but for us,elders too. What should be the historical role of the upcoming generation? The normal continuity and trust between the old and the new is lost. They see their elders, especially in the affluent society, in the “Establishment”, grabbing in satin and silk bought by counterfeit money, by hypocritical political and economic maneuvers, if not by outright cheating. It is no wonder they are “turning out”. As scions of the middle class, looking from the inside, they see the Establishment for what it is. They see its members, their own family rotting. The idealists and moralists of the young generation are disillusioned, as they should be, but they are unresolved and decadent as they should not be. Even their much advertised love instead of gushing as young love should be, is anemic. Still, the future of our nation, if not of the world, is theirs with stock and barrel. Can there be a sane way to foresee, to predict the art of theirs in the future? The answer is, no. They are going to be keepers of our graveyards where our art too will be buried. * Mr. Balint is a notec» author, lecturer, essayist and artist. He has granted us permission to reprint this article which is an excerpt from a chapter in his book, entitled: “Backyard Art.” 8 _ AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO___
