To the Editor:

 If a carefully ruled "X" constitutes the best of recent Minnesota art, perhaps the state should apply at once for federal aid. Obviously we must be a poverty-stricken area, at least in the field of art.
Anyone who has seen the prize-winning paintings in the current biennial exhibit of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts doubtless would agree with the derogatory comments of artist Fossum (April 25), plus those of critics Sherman and Morrison, and would deplore the apparently hasty and inadequate rebuttal by the institute's director (May 2).
I am signing this letter with reluctance, since it might be better to follow the provincial New York trend and merely at the end make my illiterate, though neatly drawn, "X."
– John Locken, Minneapolis

To the Editor: 
Anthony Clark's defense (May 2) of jurors in response to Syd Fossum's letter of April 25 is interesting but unconvincing. How fortunate for the world that Michelangelo had the ability, the inspiration, and the grinding perseverance to carve his famous David when he was the age of two of the jurors in the recent (and for most of us sterile) exhibit at the Minneapolis Art Institute.
With "obvious prize winners" confined to checkerboards and burlesque, the outlook for budding Michaelangelos in our time is dismal. And had not Fossum and a few other local artists become established before the 1960s their work would have been buried under the vapid trash of today.
– Bethel J. McGrath, Minneapolis

To the Editor: 
It is quite clear to me that the judges and the artists on view at the Fourth Minnesota Artists' Biennial at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, for the most part, are echoing the hollow voice of our society.
If one accepts the truism that the artist is a reflection of his society, then as T. S. Eliot has said, "We are the hollow men; we are the stuffed men ..”
The artist has since the industrial revolution alienated himself from the people. But what is worse, he now has taken the step to alienate himself from himself. Where in this exhibition and in the trend of contemporary U.S. painting today can we find a clear view of man and his relationship to nature, religion and basic feelings?
This relationship has fed the artist's mind throughout his recording of history. It seems today that he has chosen to ignore his vital link.
Anoka.
-James Quentin Young

Humanity in Art

To the Editor: 
Art is one of the humanities. The humanities have recently been defined as "the study of that which is most human." Where is there anything human in the painting, "Intersection"" , which has just been awarded first place in the Fourth Minnesota Artists Biennial Exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts? It could have been done by a machine; perhaps the artist feels we have already completely submitted our lives to the non-human. But surely the role of the artist and the institutes of art should be to resist that conclusion rather than to reflect it.
Edina.
-Mrs. E. W. White

View the Letters to the Editor in the paper, here.