The fruitless folly of sustained effort and unrequited longing .
That was how my good friend David Schoffman summed up his early attempts at attracting the attention of art dealers, curators and critics. "The knaves would have nothing of it. They gnawed at my heels with contempt. They toyed with my desperate insecurities and maliciously heaped an acrid stench of stern rebuke with the corrupt impunity of tyrants. Like dogs they nibbled on my soul, their blunted fangs burrowing deep into the marrow of hurt and rejection. They took me for a fool until of course they couldn't any longer, but I refuse to forget and I will never forgive."
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| Gunther Broadstreet |
He reserved his harshest comments for Gunther Broadstreet, the former editor and chief of Art Abandon who dined regularly on David's liver during those long, lean years. He was the last to finally champion Schoffman's work but in a shameless amnestic way. In a naked attempt to expiate his former disregard, Broadstreet has become the loudest and most hyperbolic of David's admirers.
"That blustering old goat gives windbags a bad name," is David's take on the matter, "I'd make him eat cadmium before I'd give him the time of day."
And he was only getting started
What has occasioned this retrospective summery of snubs, slights and discourtesies is the filming of a new documentary about contemporary artists by the prize winning filmmaker Abrahamine Artaud. Self-consciously fashioned in the manner of the 1973 classic Painters Painting the movie features interviews of all the usual suspects revealing few surprises and fewer insights. Unlike its more candid predecessor, this current project, tentatively titled Equivocating Artists, is nothing but a fanfare of sophistry, politesse and unprincipled self-promotion.
The notable exception being the seven minute forty-two second verbal hemorrhage by my angry friend Schoffman.
Broadstreet, who refused to be photographed, was courtly, insincere and conspicuously contrite.
"That blustering old goat gives windbags a bad name," is David's take on the matter, "I'd make him eat cadmium before I'd give him the time of day."
And he was only getting started
What has occasioned this retrospective summery of snubs, slights and discourtesies is the filming of a new documentary about contemporary artists by the prize winning filmmaker Abrahamine Artaud. Self-consciously fashioned in the manner of the 1973 classic Painters Painting the movie features interviews of all the usual suspects revealing few surprises and fewer insights. Unlike its more candid predecessor, this current project, tentatively titled Equivocating Artists, is nothing but a fanfare of sophistry, politesse and unprincipled self-promotion.
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| Still from Equivocating Artists, 2014. (Courtesy of Tainted Pictures and Abrahamine Artaud) |
The notable exception being the seven minute forty-two second verbal hemorrhage by my angry friend Schoffman.
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| Gunther Broadstreet |
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