CONTROVERSIAL SCHOLARSHIP

An unaccountable listlessness, a crippling ennui and a plague of world-weariness gripped my good friend David Schoffman  from early 1991 till the famous summer of 2000. Arpeggios of misfortune draggled him in misery. Unforeseen professional debacles were relieved only by crushing calamity and ruinous bad luck. When asked by Beatrice Alberghati chief art critic for Credenze Voluminoso why his work from that period showed no outward signs of his inner turbulence he famously answered "sono un professionista."

And so it comes as no small surprise to learn that a recently published essay by Schoffman in the Journal of Relational Aesthetics discusses in great length the relationship between disruptive innovation and temperament. Citing a recent study from the Polytechnical Institute of Neuchatel, Schoffman argues that "Cubism had more to do with Braque's rapture than the gnawing influence of Cézanne and the fingerprint of Uccello's gout and bleeding ulcer weighs much more heavily upon Prato's Birth of the Virgin than Jesus ever did."

So in addition to his designation as "the claw of the art-world," David is now the bête noire of the academic community as well. The intellectuals smell blood and David anticipates a glamorous execution as well as a boat-load of free publicity.