Bill Reid by Doris Shadbolt (review)

208 LETTERS IN CANADA 1987 not the other way around. Rather than starting with a belief that Canadian art history should be written from the viewpoint of how individual artists match up to·standards - invariably drawn from elsewhere - why not begin with the exceptional artist as an exception, and show how the exceptional can change our assumptions?' (18). Had Burnettindeed followed the approach he outlines here (despite his arguable assumption that 'standards' at this particular point in Canadian art history are invariably drawn from elsewhere), he might have been able to reconsider Town's place in Canadian art history. Instead Burnett not only disregards developments in the Canadian art scene after Town's early years - the 1950S and early 1960s - but relies on parallels to the American mainstream. There is total silence on Town's relationship with Toronto's new generation at the time when several important new forces were emerging in Canada - in particular the artist-run spaces and the commercial network, areas which appear to have presented Town with serious difficulties. This is the period which coincides with Town's increasing critical neglect. In fact, the transition 'from the work into history' is never made here, with the inevitable result that at the end, Town is declared an 'outsider' (200). This judgment is both regrettable and shocking. Town is as representative of 'Toronto' as one could think. If Burnett does not agree with this common opinion - and he obviously does not - there is, at the very least, a contradiction which should have been addressed. Furthermore, calling Town an outsider is based on the fallacy that 'mainstream' (which, incidentally, is never defined in the book) is both an irreversible and a coherent entity. It would have been useful to learn how Town's concerns either diverged from or reflected some of the main issues of the period. Such an approach does not necessarily imply 'trying to match up to standards,' but it could contextualize the lesser-known or the misread Town with the prevailing taste. It would genuinely 'look from the work into history.' Burnett certainly deserves to be congratulated for his decision to discuss an artist whose work he feels does not receive proper critical attention. However, by failing to discuss Town's concerns and to probe the reasons for Town's neglect, he does little to re-establish Town within the context of the period. He only leaves the artist within his own marginality and produces a book - a stamp of validation if there ever was one - which embodies institutional power rather than being the 'subversive' gesture which is needed. (LOUISE DOMPIERRE) Doris Shadbolt. Bill Reid Douglas and McIntyre 1986. 192. $60.00 This is not simply a book, but a patently beautiful object. On the brown HUMANITIES 209 cover a photograph of one of Reid's gold boxes and the letters of the artist's name outlined in gold. Inside, heavy, glossy paper, immaculate type, wide white margins, exquisite colour plates in which the precious objects (Reid's jewellery and sculpture) are presented to us like a succession of treasures on subtly coloured grounds. Even the black-andwhite plates and the photographs which document Reid's life maintain an aura bybeing printed in sepia tone. The book, then, functions both as a shrine and a monument to Reid's work. Doris Shadbolthas not, however, produced a coffee-table book. On the contrary, the structure of the book acts like an Indian tr~nsformation mask. It opens upon a succession of issues, each of which deepens our grasp of unexpected complexities in Reid's work. The five major themes which focus Shadbolt's thoughtful and detailed expositions are Reid's biography; the character and meaning of Haida art; the distinctive aesthetics which Reid has developed from this; his special cho~es in iconography; and his involvement with the political realities ofBritish Columbia's native people. . Like the forms inside an Indian ovoid, these narratives are not concentric. Their interplay reveals tension and paradox. Shadbolt shows that, as Reid has come closer through patient study to the artistic language and thought of traditional Haida culture, the pain of the irrevocable loss of that world has become greater for...