It’s all about Class Struggle innit?

By Marc Taro Holmes in Montreal, QC, CA

In a previous USK:MTL outing we went to the Beaux Arts for some indoor sketching.

There’s a sculpture in the permanent modern collection that I always enjoy, despite its hideous appearance.

Tony Matelli’s Old Enemy, New Victim depicts a pair of emaciated Chimpanzees attacking a morbidly obese Orangutan. It seems an act of monkey cannibalism is imminent.

As I was sketching, a young dad and his cute moppet passed by, and I heard him explain “It’s all about class struggle innit?”

In the distant past, in one of my teen dropout phases, I had a job delivering junk mail flyers in a rather posh neighborhood. Actually, my ex took this job, thinking it might be easy side money. That illusion didn’t survive the first day, and I was roped into going door-to-door schelpping huge bags of paper pulp.

Naturally it was the middle of winter in Alberta, so by the time we were hitting the streets it was freezing cold, dark and knee deep in snow. You could see that inside the cheerily lit windows, these were some beautiful homes. They certainly all had monster long sidewalks. I think we were paid a penny per flyer.

Matelli’s sculpture encapsulates my feelings quite well.

~m