When my ageless friend David Schoffman turned fifty his putative American friends surprised him with a party.
Why they committed this unforgivable assault was easily enough explained. It's what we French call pour étudier un adversaire or in English, "opposition research."
It was Schoffman's first real marking of his accidental date of birth since his besotted bar-mitzvah and the trauma of that cheek-pinching, schnopps-filled day was still as raw as a tuber.
 |
| Schoffman and Boulbec in Beirut, 2006 |
He was married at the time to a saucy Lebanese wench named Samira Boulbec who took it as her life's work to subvert and distort everything Schoffman valued, particularly his privacy. It was her malevolent idea to allow Schoffman's peers access to his sacred and secreted studio and garnish the joint with festive bunting and heliuminated balloons.
Predictably, my dear unsuspecting friend was furious. The sight of so many of his devoted rivals in one room - his room - was a massive, destabilizing blow the magnitude of which even David could not accurately assess.
Within weeks a riotous miscellany of Schoffman knock-offs were popping up in studios, art schools and galleries throughout southern California. From Santa Barbara to San Diego small colorful panels ornamented with Liiliputian detail were exhibited and critiqued with little or no mention of their intellectual progenitor.
Such is the nature of promiscuity. Such are the consequences of ulterior kinship.
"At any given time our culture allows for only five original ideas," Schoffman is fond of proclaiming, "and fortunately I have one of them."
Not anymore ...
 |
| Wildflower, acrylic on wood, Dahlia Danton, 2015 |
No comments:
Post a Comment