BABYLONIA

My good friend David Schoffman is well known for his incorruptible indifference. He has a coarse quarrelsome nature and knows its best for him to avoid the necessary kinships and vital alliances of the art world. Upright in the portentous glare of his reputation, David never misses an opportunity to sabotage his considerable achievements.

It actually soothes his heart to alienate people of influence.

Every generation has its artistic Edens and David insists on banishment from each and every one. Back in the day he bickered with Greenberg, groused against Gogosian and tussled with Castelli. He clashed bitterly with Schjeldahl, fussed endlessly with Danto and had a knock down barroom dust-up with Peter Pyrenean, the former editor in chief of ArtNotes.

I even heard from a reliable witness that while David was still a student he picked a fight with Pierre Matisse just to see if he could carry on a credible altercation in fluent idiomatic French.

Much has changed in the intervening years. After a particularly ugly incident involving an art handler, a Scandinavian collector and a broken window, Schoffman left Manhattan and settled in  Gualala, California. He sees practically no one and has neither cell phone nor computer. To reach him one must send a letter to the post office on Highway 1 and hope it somehow finds him. 

View from Schoffman's studio window, Gualala, California

I heard from our mutual friend, Dahlia Danton that he is doing beautiful work and that he is still living off of residuals from a Korean sitcom he did in the early 80's.