I have these friends, Jimmy and Julie who have been together for the longest time and who are both artists in their own right. Jimmy has had a long fruitful career as an artist and is still pretty active for an 80 something year old man, showing in many galleries. Last spring, they were approached, through their gallery, by the Bombardier Museum, which wanted to exhibit a retrospective of Jimmy's lifetime work. Cool..! They thought as they started to prepare and communicate with the initiators of this great offer from the people at Bombardier. Now, anyone who's ever put together an art show of some magnitude together will tell you it's not a walk in the park. There are a lot of things to consider. From framing to publicity, transport and what not, especially for a retrospective spanning a half century of creativity, II's a daunting task. So, after three months worth of work with an incessant communication tango between the gallery, themselves and Bombardier, the show was finally canceled at the last moment because it included some paintings which depicted nudity. A lot of which were accepted from the get-go. Honestly, I've photographed many paintings of nudes in my day and Jimmy Jones' nudes (aka Henry Wanton Jones) are not what you would call graphic or provocative. Judge for yourselves..
Someone pulled the plug deeming that this would have a major impact on our society for the rest of our lives......Thank you for sparing us from the ill effects of painted female genitalia. We will for ever be in your debt for shielding us from this evil. Amen..!
Honestly I have to admit that I despise Bombardier. I think they're corporate welfare cry babies who have no problem getting handouts from the government but will stop at nothing to rip us off. The Montreal subway saga is a good example if you've been following it as I have. Furthermore, I've yet to see somebody suffer a cardiac arrest while gazing at Renoir's ''Les Baigneuses'' at the Louvre. '' Someone please call 911. Timmy just fainted when he saw what resembled his mother's ass hanging on a wall ''.
Yet Bombadier's grown up toy's, like Seadoos, all terrain vehicles, and that all new popular three wheel motorcycle for aging James Dean wannabees are probably responsible for more deaths than the graphic pictorial description of female or male organs. This is not factoring in the pollution and noise factor. In fact, when a town in the Eastern Townships wanted to pass a law prohibiting such noisy polluting contraptions from their lake, they were met by Bombardier's legal team who threatened to sue their ass to hell. And so, not having the resources to bang heads with a corporate giant, the municipality backed off.
Bombardier in the end, did offer my friends a 2000$ settlement for their hard work. Gee thanks..!
When calculated between the two of them for three months work it winds up to just about 2.00$ per hour. Not the equivalent of working in a Central American sweatshop, but close to. Of course the gallery,with no profit in view, discretely bowed out, even though they instigated the whole process. Meanwhile, my spurned friends are pondering some form of legal action, as they rightfully should. Corporations like Bombardier think they can get way with anything. And, by donating heavily to political campaign funds, they usually do.
It's up to us to keep them in check, anyway we can before they start dictating how we should run our lives, deciding what's acceptable or not. And believe me they will, if we let them....Just like they did for my friends and that municipality in the Townships.
Footnote: You can see Henry Wanton Jones' work here at http://www.galerievalentin.com/
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