5.
First, "communication" as the desire to transmit something, and thus to engage subject matter, bears the brunt of the Greenberg/Fried-led assault on Minimalism, Pop Art and Duchampism. The mid-sixties was a time of fervent liberal nationalism in Canada, culminating in the centennial of Confederation in 1967 and the International and Universal Exposition (Expo) in Montréal in 1967. From the Canadian point of view, the hostility of New York modernists to communication in art and especially in painting was also read as anti-Canadian, adding to the growing suspicion and resentment of the hegemony of the New York art market - then a mere inkling of the behemoth it is today. Furthermore, from a Canadian perspective, the language of much America criticism must have appeared aggressive and chauvinistic, a high cultural form of imperialism in sync with the terror being unleashed in Southeast Asia. Thus Minimalism, Pop Art and Duchampism arrive in Canada.

Second . . . communications media and technology were seen as a national value . . .