HUMILITY

No work, no matter how accomplished, can justify the unseemly display of hubristic excess on the part of David Schoffman, occasioned by the current exhibition at DCA Fine Art. I too would be pleased if Stan Pessoa described my work on Charlie Rose as “the greengages of art history’s next page.” I would be thrilled if Landor Savage pre-purchased ten percent of next year’s studio output. My lips would brighten and my soul would sing if Epitaph Press were publishing a catalogue raisonné of my early work, even without the critical essay by Chaumeur. But Schoffman has become insufferable.

He’s behaving like a child. Like an eddying elf preening over a cooked biscuit, his giddy self-congratulations are tedious and embarrassing.

I need my tranquility restored if I am to get back to Paris and work productively. I find myself wishing Schoffman some spectacular calamity, shingles, a swollen tongue, a lost limb.

Yes, my work is being well received, but that smug and stately David Schoffman exceeds me at every turn.

My withering hand beseeches you my readers …. Do not get caught in the maelstrom. Schoffman must dismount from his lofty star!

GESTURES SPILLING FROM CRATES

RATTLING TRAFFIC AT DCA FINE ART





Few people realize that the paintings and drawings David Schoffman is exhibiting at DCA this summer are commonly referred to as “The Lost Works.” The pictures literally disappeared after “Yellow Tuesday”, that fateful and largely misunderstood June day in Paris many years ago. Like much of the neighborhood surrounding the Montsouris, David’s studio was looted.

“Mardi Jaune” was a turning point for the School of Pestilence. Our collective uncertainty gave way to lassitude, which in turn submitted to apathy. David was particularly affected. Years of anticipation made him exhausted. With his studio in tatters, stained by the blood of youth, David returned to New York with whatever work he could salvage from the wreckage.

A few years ago, Ricardo de Campos, the Portuguese lace magnate donated a considerable portion of his art collection to the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. Among the works were three paintings and three drawings from Schoffman’s "Rattling Traffic" series. Seeking restitution, (the movie “A Heart More Distant” is based of this), Schoffman was forced into an unnerving period of angry litigation. The pictures were eventually returned.

Perhaps the publicity inspired by this current exhibition will help locate the remaining paintings.

IN ADVANCE OF THE DCA FINE ART EXHIBITION

I am reminded by Alsatian poet Bertrand Caillebotte's sonnet, “Douze Façons Pour Se Pencher,” that rage and envy are “…doublé par la dette et désespère.”

The falling out between Schoffman and I was caused by a remarkably petty affair. We were at the Beaubourg, admiring “Violin et Verre,” the 1913 still life of Juan Gris when I made the innocent observation that the painting reminded me of David’s picture “The Loom of Minerva.” Well, if you are at all acquainted with David and his pathological “anxiety of influence,” you can probably figure out what happened next.

With blood rushing toward his shiny grey dome and his face contorted into a scuffling beak he looked at me with a contempt I had never imagined him capable of. “Malaspina, you are a scab, you are stagnant water, you repel me,” and with that he turned on his heel and marched out of the museum.

Two frosty years passed without as much as a word until last month’s invitation to exhibit with him in Los Angeles. Well, I have wearied of the corruption of our unfortunate acrimony. David is, quite frankly, a remarkable painter. I am honored to exhibit with him at DCA Fine Art and I look forward to it.

I hope he has lost his preoccupation with Gris.