War Museum Controversy and Follow-up Thread [merged]
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geo said:
A Zeppelin dropped 1800 lbs of bombs on Antwerp 26 Aug 1914. Apparently, there was an anti-bombing agreement. Two days later a pair of airships attacked the city again. In the initial assault, a dozen people, all civilians were killed. One bomb blew apart a hospital wing. They were aiming at a military fortification on the outskirt of the city, but with no bomb sights, there wasn't much accuracy.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_bombing_of_cities
Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912
The very first aerial act of aggression occurred during the Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912 in North Africa. Italy had been using aircraft to monitor enemy troop movements and search for Turkish artillery positions. One Italian pilot, Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, realized that the aircraft could be used for more than simple reconnaissance. The event occurred over a Turkish camp at Ain Zara in Libya on 1 November 1911. Lt. Gavotti was flying his Taube monoplane at an altitude of 600 ft (185 m) when he took four small 4.5 lb (2 kg) grenades from a leather pouch, screwed in the detonators he had taken aboard his aircraft in his pocket, and threw each bomb over the side by hand. Although no one was injured and little damage was done, Lt. Gavotti earned his place in history for conducting the first aerial bombing raid ever recorded.[citation needed]
[edit]
Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912
The very first aerial act of aggression occurred during the Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912 in North Africa. Italy had been using aircraft to monitor enemy troop movements and search for Turkish artillery positions. One Italian pilot, Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, realized that the aircraft could be used for more than simple reconnaissance. The event occurred over a Turkish camp at Ain Zara in Libya on 1 November 1911. Lt. Gavotti was flying his Taube monoplane at an altitude of 600 ft (185 m) when he took four small 4.5 lb (2 kg) grenades from a leather pouch, screwed in the detonators he had taken aboard his aircraft in his pocket, and threw each bomb over the side by hand. Although no one was injured and little damage was done, Lt. Gavotti earned his place in history for conducting the first aerial bombing raid ever recorded.[citation needed]
[edit]
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Baden Guy said:
Italian General Guilo Douhet wrote a report on this.
Some historians say that Gen Douhet is the godfather of air power. Ranking alongside Trenchard and Billy Mitchell as advocates of assault on the heart of a nation by self-contained, self-defending, high altitude bomber formations.
His book, "Command of the Air" was published in in 1921:
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/command_of_the_air.pdf
I should have specified that although Germany was not the first to bomb in history, they were the first to bomb in a World War.
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Yes, airpower theorists always keep a copy of Douhet's Command of the Air under their pillows -- much as naval theorists will cite Mahan's Influence of Sea Power, many will nod knowingly at Sun Tzu's Art of War, and everyone has a mandatory quote or two from Clausewitz's On War (although apparently it's been read cover to cover by only eight people since being published in 1832).
None of which explains why the CWM wants to spend my tax dollars on a drawing of a militia CO for its collection.
Thought I'd forgotten the reason for resurrecting this latest CWM discussion, hadn't you? ;D
None of which explains why the CWM wants to spend my tax dollars on a drawing of a militia CO for its collection.
Thought I'd forgotten the reason for resurrecting this latest CWM discussion, hadn't you? ;D
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Sorry for the necropost, but an update on Karen Bailey's work:
Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Sun
http://www.ottawasun.com/news/columnists/earl_mcrae/2009/08/26/10626951.html
Artist's Afghan works get the brush off
Military refuses to promote paintings they helped fund, of our troops in Afghanistan
By Earl McRae, Sun Media
Last Updated: 27th August 2009, 6:56am
------------------------------------------
A hurtful, cruel snub, but so bloody typical in this no-rate country symbolized by The Canadian Disease: Small, dull, dreary, half-dead minds shrivelled by a crippling apathy, inertia, and disinclination to dislodge oneself from life’s comfortable sit-but-do-nothing crapper.
Karen Bailey, war artist, has had to resort to self-exhibiting her magnificent paintings in the corridor outside her small studio in an old former school on Crichton St. because she can’t get Canada to give a damn about her work, including, most inexcusably, the Canadian military that flew her to Afghanistan because it was supposedly proud of the men and women doctors and nurses in our armed forces who’ve been attending sick, wounded, and dying soldiers and Afghan civilians at the Kandahar base hospital.
But are you ready for this? The Americans, the Americans heard of Karen Bailey’s paintings of our brave Canadian doctors, nurses, and medical technicians at work, and the Americans will be proudly exhibiting her acrylic images for an entire month next year at the University of New Orleans’ prestigious St. Claude Gallery, part of the largest museum devoted to Second World War artifacts in the United States.
“We are very much looking forward to this show,” said A. Lawrence Jenkins, professor and chair of the UNO department of fine arts, in a letter this week to Karen Bailey. And any and all costs, including Karen Bailey’s flights, meals, and accommodation, will be looked after by the gallery.
God bless you, America.
Shame on you, Canada.
If, however, you are not one of the apathetic, inert, Canadian dullards, you can show your caring, your pride in our soldiers, by showing up for Karen Bailey’s exhibit from the 28th of September to the 9th of October between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (closed Sunday) at 200 Crichton St.
“I hope people don’t mind that all I will be serving is water,” she says in her small, cramped, rented studio on the top floor of the old school, “but I’m putting it on myself and it’s all I can afford.”
Bailey, whose paintings in various genres have been exhibited in Britain, Ireland, the U.S. and Canada, some of which are in private collections, was not at all motivated by personal profit when her application was accepted by the Canadian Forces Artists Program to go to Afghanistan; her desire to focus on the hard-working, selfless, unsung medical personnel, not the combat soldiers.
“I just wanted to create this legacy of paintings. The department of national defence gave me the impression it really cared that I was doing this. They paid my way there and back on a military plane.”
She spent a week at the base hospital in June 2007 sketching and taking photographs of our military medical doctors and nurses at work, in and out of the operating room, and what she experienced has changed her forever.
“They are such wonderful, devoted, compassionate, inspiring people,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. “They are so proud of what they do, they made me even prouder to be a Canadian. It’s so important to recognize them. No soldiers were hurt when I was there, so I saw them attending to civilians; war-injured Afghan adults and children.
“One little girl, she was only eight, they thought they might have to amputate her leg, but one of our Canadian doctors devised a skin-grafting method to save it, and I was there the day she walked out of the hospital.
“Even the Taliban would leave their injured children at the gates of the base to be taken into the hospital. Taliban fighters themselves would come, hoping to be treated. After they were, they were held captive.”
When Bailey got home she immersed herself totally in her war theatre paintings, 20 canvasses, and just recently finished the two-year project. But it wasn’t just recently that, disturbingly, she became aware of an appalling disinterest in her on-going work by the same military hierarchy that approved her trip. She was hoping it might have a desire to proudly show her work of its Canadian doctors and nurses, to proudly show Canadians, to help her in that initiative. Wrong.
“I thought the DND people would like to come and see my work, but there was no interest.”
She wrote letters, she e-mailed, she phoned, asking for its help in showcasing the paintings, maybe in military establishments. The answer was no.
“I was told that if they put them up on a wall, people might think they’re for sale. Or it’d be perceived as favouring an artist.” Thundering bureaucratic idiocy.
She spoke to a high-ranking officer at Camp Borden about showing her work. “When I told him it was contemporary art he said ‘What’s that mean?’ He said they only display tanks and weapons.”
She asked Tim Hortons head office if it could help; it has an outlet on the Kandahar base. “They said it wasn’t the kind of thing they’re into.”
She contacted the Canadian War Museum. “They said it could maybe be considered for an exhibit in 2012.”
She e-mailed officials of more than 60 venues across Canada, some military, that would seem appropriate for her exhibit. “Nothing positive. I’ve had 40 rejections so far, some didn’t bother responding.”
She thought for sure that the surgeon-general of the Canadian Forces, brigadier general Hilary Jaeger (who retired in July) would have an interest in seeing her work and help her in getting it displayed to Canadians. An officer with DND met with Jaeger on Bailey’s behalf.
In his subsequent letter to Bailey — which she shows me — he wrote: “My meeting with BGen Jaeger yesterday was not as productive as I’d hoped.” And Jaeger’s “insight,” he went on, “was to the effect that the CFHS (Canadian Forces Health Service) and CF (Canadian Forces) do not see the work our people do in Afghanistan as ‘extraordinary’— they are doing what they’re trained to do. Accordingly efforts to showcase or immortalize the efforts of personnel in Afghanistan will likely not resonate with the CF leadership.”
Can you believe this crock? What our military doctors and nurses do in Afghanistan is not extraordinary? It’s what “they’re trained to do?” So to hell with showcasing them? Then why did DND allow Karen Bailey to waste her time painting them if they didn’t goddam hugely matter? I’m enraged, and you out there should be too.
Karen Bailey, superior Canadian: 613-562-2497.
Contact McRae at earl.mcrae@sunmedia.ca or leave a message at 613-739-5133, ext. 469.
------------------------------------------------
Unfortunate...
Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Sun
http://www.ottawasun.com/news/columnists/earl_mcrae/2009/08/26/10626951.html
Artist's Afghan works get the brush off
Military refuses to promote paintings they helped fund, of our troops in Afghanistan
By Earl McRae, Sun Media
Last Updated: 27th August 2009, 6:56am
------------------------------------------
A hurtful, cruel snub, but so bloody typical in this no-rate country symbolized by The Canadian Disease: Small, dull, dreary, half-dead minds shrivelled by a crippling apathy, inertia, and disinclination to dislodge oneself from life’s comfortable sit-but-do-nothing crapper.
Karen Bailey, war artist, has had to resort to self-exhibiting her magnificent paintings in the corridor outside her small studio in an old former school on Crichton St. because she can’t get Canada to give a damn about her work, including, most inexcusably, the Canadian military that flew her to Afghanistan because it was supposedly proud of the men and women doctors and nurses in our armed forces who’ve been attending sick, wounded, and dying soldiers and Afghan civilians at the Kandahar base hospital.
But are you ready for this? The Americans, the Americans heard of Karen Bailey’s paintings of our brave Canadian doctors, nurses, and medical technicians at work, and the Americans will be proudly exhibiting her acrylic images for an entire month next year at the University of New Orleans’ prestigious St. Claude Gallery, part of the largest museum devoted to Second World War artifacts in the United States.
“We are very much looking forward to this show,” said A. Lawrence Jenkins, professor and chair of the UNO department of fine arts, in a letter this week to Karen Bailey. And any and all costs, including Karen Bailey’s flights, meals, and accommodation, will be looked after by the gallery.
God bless you, America.
Shame on you, Canada.
If, however, you are not one of the apathetic, inert, Canadian dullards, you can show your caring, your pride in our soldiers, by showing up for Karen Bailey’s exhibit from the 28th of September to the 9th of October between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (closed Sunday) at 200 Crichton St.
“I hope people don’t mind that all I will be serving is water,” she says in her small, cramped, rented studio on the top floor of the old school, “but I’m putting it on myself and it’s all I can afford.”
Bailey, whose paintings in various genres have been exhibited in Britain, Ireland, the U.S. and Canada, some of which are in private collections, was not at all motivated by personal profit when her application was accepted by the Canadian Forces Artists Program to go to Afghanistan; her desire to focus on the hard-working, selfless, unsung medical personnel, not the combat soldiers.
“I just wanted to create this legacy of paintings. The department of national defence gave me the impression it really cared that I was doing this. They paid my way there and back on a military plane.”
She spent a week at the base hospital in June 2007 sketching and taking photographs of our military medical doctors and nurses at work, in and out of the operating room, and what she experienced has changed her forever.
“They are such wonderful, devoted, compassionate, inspiring people,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. “They are so proud of what they do, they made me even prouder to be a Canadian. It’s so important to recognize them. No soldiers were hurt when I was there, so I saw them attending to civilians; war-injured Afghan adults and children.
“One little girl, she was only eight, they thought they might have to amputate her leg, but one of our Canadian doctors devised a skin-grafting method to save it, and I was there the day she walked out of the hospital.
“Even the Taliban would leave their injured children at the gates of the base to be taken into the hospital. Taliban fighters themselves would come, hoping to be treated. After they were, they were held captive.”
When Bailey got home she immersed herself totally in her war theatre paintings, 20 canvasses, and just recently finished the two-year project. But it wasn’t just recently that, disturbingly, she became aware of an appalling disinterest in her on-going work by the same military hierarchy that approved her trip. She was hoping it might have a desire to proudly show her work of its Canadian doctors and nurses, to proudly show Canadians, to help her in that initiative. Wrong.
“I thought the DND people would like to come and see my work, but there was no interest.”
She wrote letters, she e-mailed, she phoned, asking for its help in showcasing the paintings, maybe in military establishments. The answer was no.
“I was told that if they put them up on a wall, people might think they’re for sale. Or it’d be perceived as favouring an artist.” Thundering bureaucratic idiocy.
She spoke to a high-ranking officer at Camp Borden about showing her work. “When I told him it was contemporary art he said ‘What’s that mean?’ He said they only display tanks and weapons.”
She asked Tim Hortons head office if it could help; it has an outlet on the Kandahar base. “They said it wasn’t the kind of thing they’re into.”
She contacted the Canadian War Museum. “They said it could maybe be considered for an exhibit in 2012.”
She e-mailed officials of more than 60 venues across Canada, some military, that would seem appropriate for her exhibit. “Nothing positive. I’ve had 40 rejections so far, some didn’t bother responding.”
She thought for sure that the surgeon-general of the Canadian Forces, brigadier general Hilary Jaeger (who retired in July) would have an interest in seeing her work and help her in getting it displayed to Canadians. An officer with DND met with Jaeger on Bailey’s behalf.
In his subsequent letter to Bailey — which she shows me — he wrote: “My meeting with BGen Jaeger yesterday was not as productive as I’d hoped.” And Jaeger’s “insight,” he went on, “was to the effect that the CFHS (Canadian Forces Health Service) and CF (Canadian Forces) do not see the work our people do in Afghanistan as ‘extraordinary’— they are doing what they’re trained to do. Accordingly efforts to showcase or immortalize the efforts of personnel in Afghanistan will likely not resonate with the CF leadership.”
Can you believe this crock? What our military doctors and nurses do in Afghanistan is not extraordinary? It’s what “they’re trained to do?” So to hell with showcasing them? Then why did DND allow Karen Bailey to waste her time painting them if they didn’t goddam hugely matter? I’m enraged, and you out there should be too.
Karen Bailey, superior Canadian: 613-562-2497.
Contact McRae at earl.mcrae@sunmedia.ca or leave a message at 613-739-5133, ext. 469.
------------------------------------------------
Unfortunate...
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Unfortunate indeed, but just to play Devil's Advocate, here's some info on the Canadian Forces Artist Program (CFAP):
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/gal/ap-pa/index-eng.asp
http://www.artistsincanada.com/php/article.php?id=780 - Note the final paragraph.
No where does it say that DND or the CF will help the artist showcase their work.
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/gal/ap-pa/index-eng.asp
http://www.artistsincanada.com/php/article.php?id=780 - Note the final paragraph.
No where does it say that DND or the CF will help the artist showcase their work.
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That's right as far as the rules go, but if this passage reflects what was actually said/written (with all the usual MSM caveats, especially in an opinion piece quoting someone third-hand from a letter):PMedMoe said:
then I'm disappointed in the attitude regarding the sharing of stories (even via artwork) on the part of some senior officers in the CF.
To play the "Counter Devil's Advocate"
, you could apply the same rationale to ANY work done by the CF anywhere - if that's true, there's no reason to even embed reporters with CF units in Afghanistan because, at one level, they're all doing the job they're paid for, right? Going further, why bother having all those CF Public Affairs and other folks write up pieces about what's happening? I believe a GREAT job is being done, and Canadians should know about the work the men and women over there are doing.Now, is anyone in "the system" uncomfortable about seeming to sanction sharing of imagery showing the nastier parts of war? That's a very different question....
Blackadder1916
Army.ca Veteran
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Has the DHH/CFAP organized any (consolidated vice indiv artist's work) tours or exhibits of recent war art?
Some of Ms. Bailey's work can be seen here. http://www.karenbailey.ca/current_work/Afghanistan/afghanistan_index.html
Critiquing the relative merits of an artist's medium, technique, style, subject matter or message are well beyond my ". . .small, dull, dreary, half-dead mind". But I am able to form an opinion of what this ". . . apathetic, inert, Canadian dullard . . ." likes. Unfortunately, Ms. Bailey's pieces (at least the ones on her site) don't get on my list. They're okay, but not inspiring (to me, anyway).
It would be "nice" if there were regular exhibitions of the works generated through the CFAP, but I get the sense that Ms. Bailey is seeking a more individualized (subsidized) showcase of this particular collection. The CF (or any of its serving members in an official capacity) should not be basing decisions on an opinion of art. They do a lot of things well, but I don't remember art criticism being a PO on any course I ever attended. There may be an element of "don't like your work" in the lack of enthusiasm that Ms. Bailey has encountered from the military, but she should remember that the CF is not in the business of "patron of the arts".
Some of Ms. Bailey's work can be seen here. http://www.karenbailey.ca/current_work/Afghanistan/afghanistan_index.html
Critiquing the relative merits of an artist's medium, technique, style, subject matter or message are well beyond my ". . .small, dull, dreary, half-dead mind". But I am able to form an opinion of what this ". . . apathetic, inert, Canadian dullard . . ." likes. Unfortunately, Ms. Bailey's pieces (at least the ones on her site) don't get on my list. They're okay, but not inspiring (to me, anyway).
It would be "nice" if there were regular exhibitions of the works generated through the CFAP, but I get the sense that Ms. Bailey is seeking a more individualized (subsidized) showcase of this particular collection. The CF (or any of its serving members in an official capacity) should not be basing decisions on an opinion of art. They do a lot of things well, but I don't remember art criticism being a PO on any course I ever attended. There may be an element of "don't like your work" in the lack of enthusiasm that Ms. Bailey has encountered from the military, but she should remember that the CF is not in the business of "patron of the arts".
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PMedMoe said:
Blackadder1916 said:
If the whining is indeed about "why isn't the CF marketing my pieces?" or "why isn't the CF displaying my pieces?", bang on. In that case, a simple (but more politely/bureaucratically phrased) "sorry, we paid you to paint 'em, not to flog 'em" would have been way better than the response attributed to the Surgeon General.
- edited to correct quote formatting -
Blackadder1916
Army.ca Veteran
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milnews.ca said:
My impression is that she received such a response earlier.
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milnews.ca said:
I'd not care to comment either way on the remark supposedly given by BGen Jaeger, who is no longer the Surg Gen and who probably has no say in CFAP's selection of artists or subsequent dealings with them.
By the way, your second quote is Blackadder's, not mine.
Blackadder1916
Army.ca Veteran
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Here's a 'less slanted' piece from the Ottawa Citizen that provides some more details.
DND snubs artist's portraits of medics
While I'm still not competent to adequately critique Ms. Bailey's artistic accomplishments beyond 'like - don't like', I am developing an opinion that she does have an understanding into the "business" aspects of art and that this entire episode is solely an attempt to get funding for 'her vision'.
As to the comments attributed to BGen Jaeger - considering that Ms. Bailey is notdisclosing publicizing the name of the "senior officer" who paraphrased the opinion(?) of the former Surg Gen, I suspect that there is someone keeping his/her head down because of stupidity in taking an unofficial role in furthering a private (outside the CF) agenda.
DND snubs artist's portraits of medics
While I'm still not competent to adequately critique Ms. Bailey's artistic accomplishments beyond 'like - don't like', I am developing an opinion that she does have an understanding into the "business" aspects of art and that this entire episode is solely an attempt to get funding for 'her vision'.
As to the comments attributed to BGen Jaeger - considering that Ms. Bailey is not
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My bad - fixed it.PMedMoe said:
Hence, my Libra-like caveats and "ifs"...Blackadder1916 said:
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A post at The Torch with two good, short, videos by John Robson of the Ottawa Citizen:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/08/canadian-war-museum-extraordinary-story.html
OK, nitpick.
Mark
Ottawa
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/08/canadian-war-museum-extraordinary-story.html
OK, nitpick.
Mark
Ottawa
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Since the place opened, been meaning to visit the museum, yet never got around to. Probably would have been easier if I could have found someone to go with...apart from some folks who wanted to protest a particular exhibit some years ago.
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