The Fraternities volunteered their services when the Festival was in danger to ensure that it would not be dropped. For the Festival, the Interfraternity council provided ticket sellers for Mandel Hall Corridor, ushers at all performances and general publicity for the various events.

                Lack of Poetry
Poetry is noticeably missing from this year’s Festival of the Arts, outside the Florence James Adams reading contest. 

A Festival committee member explained that this hole in the program was to be filled by the Soviet Poet Evgeny Evtushenko, who was scheduled to visit here as part of a tour of colleges in the United States.

But, after Evtushenko returned to Russia from a European tour, he was repeatedly attacked severely by the Russian press and government officials. He was accused of generally misbehaving abroad and “entering into relations with the bourgeoise” press by
having his autobiography published in a Paris newspaper while visiting there.

A telegram was then received by the coordinator of his trip to this country stating simply that the trip was cancelled “because of illness.”

            Four art shows featured
Of the three art shows which will run the length of the Festival, one will feature works by Chicago area artists; the second, sponsored by the Renaissance Society, presents the uniquely imaginative canvases of Matta, a Chilean artist; and the third concentrates on the three-dimensional assemblages of Bruce Conner, artist-in-residence at the Festival.

Conner’s assemblages, on exhibit at the Lexington Gallery, are created with various discarded objects, such as old shoes, stockings, candle stubs, pieces of cloth, lace beads and magazine pictures. The show, which is his first in Chicago, includes several of his drawings. Conner has had one-man shows on both the east and west coasts and in Mexico City.

Conner’s work in the medium of the film can be seen Thursday when his two films “A Movie” and “Cosmic Ray” will be shown in Mandel Hall. Other films shown will include experimental works by Glen Alvey Jr., who taught Cinematography at the University of Southern California last year, and the film of the twist parties by Vernon Zimmerman.

Artists represented in the Chicago Area show which will hang in the New Women’s Residence Hall through June 8 include Harry Bouras, George Kokines, Jerry Pinsler, George Cohen, Edvins Strautnanis, Cosmo Compoli, Peter Butterfield, Miriam Brofsky, Willi Stipe, Mel Johnson, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Tan Cybis, and Ivan Mischo.

The Matta paintings have been exhibited for several weeks and will be shown through the end of the Festival May 12.

The Student Art Show in Ida Noyes Hall includes 58 paintings and lithographs, 35 photographs and 14 works of sculpture with a prize awarded in each of the four categories. Judges of the Competition are Conner, Harry Bouras, UC’s artist-in-residence; sculptress Anna Mahler, and Harold Haydon, associate professor of Humanities.     

                      (check back, more to come)