The Scream: The Third Annual Group Show

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

The Scream is a printed version of what the back cover calls a “collaborativeperformance [sic] art work.” It contains photographs, cartoons, poetry, musical scores, and prose commentary. The photographs in turn illustrate dance and meditation movements. At the centre of the book is an essay on artistic collaboration. To this viewer it is a look back at an avant garde that is no longer ahead of its time. Even the political message, screaming at the twin horrors of an alienating society and a nuclear holocaust, is obvious and tritely done.

The real avant garde work is being done in the electronic arts on computer screens and videodiscs. It’s time to play catch up.