Doom Show, March Gallery, 1961: by Stanley Fisher

The time has come when outrage overwhelms the petty fears of habit and complacency. The stupid and humiliating powers-that-are have forced themselves (and everyone else) into a culdesac which makes the nazi crematoriums relatively innocuous. These leaders, stubborn in their stupidity and contempt, refuse to relinquish their powers and admit their criminal behavior, for consecrated criminal behavior has become a way of life, right down to the brutalization of children at home and in school, and in the denial of sexual freedom to those mature enough to cope with it...and the price of this ubiquitous social disease has been mental flatulence, spiritual hypocrisy and rage against the living and the loving. But now the consequences are far reaching and deadly.... You cannot suppress human life without destroying it completely, and the means have become available...the atom bomb and its accoutrements of horror! Have we faced the threats to our existence? Have we allowed ourselves to feel the brutalization of sensitivity and love which has suppressed the desire to shout out against such abominations, but which have offered stagnation and cancer as rewards of resignation? No: truths have not stirred the imagination of a people who wish to die, and who titillate themselves with the thrill of mutilitation and injury to others. Fallout shelters are being constructed, survival kits prepared, people numbed to violation of their right to be, and their right to eccentricity. The fallout shelters are the ovens in which our self-cremations will become finalized, a death without meaning, a death without dignity, a lonely death, a death in a sense 'deserved.' And where are the artists who are on the barricades of life and culture? Why haven't they risen from their sleep to face the imminent threat to their freedoms, essential above all to the arts and dreams? They too have become tools of Mad. Money Ave. and paint the gruel of an idiotic world which cannot face the powerful emotions of existence, or the hazards of life. The March Gallery is a focus for those who want to strike out against the hallowed sickness of a world preparing to die, and a place offering encouragement to the immobilized artist of the world who want to say something with a cry of passion. This show, called Doom, is a call to those who want to survive. It is Art for Survival.