Thursday, February 17, 2011

TERZA TURPITUDE


The threshold for what we in the United States might characterize as "priapic infelicity" enjoys a much wider berth among the French. The public in general is much more at ease with matters pertaining to the appetites.



In a career spanning several tumultuous decades Currado Malaspina, neither in his work nor in his behavior, has ever faced derision on the grounds of impropriety.  Figures such as Choderlos de Laclos, Ernest-Armand Dubarry, Isidore Ducasse and the Marquis de Sade are never looked upon as scurrilous aberrations but rather as part and parcel of the Republic's patrimony. The opprobrious sneers and discourtesies that Malaspina suffered throughout the years were strictly on the grounds of aesthetic indiscretions and intellectual misconduct.


Though it is true that Currado's three wives and multiple mistresses circumnavigated the severe, puritanical geometry of a linear time-line, scandal, in the American sense, was as alien to him as processed cheese. To the French, Currado Malaspina is an artist of the first rank ... period.


That is why we are so astonished to learn that the feminist advocacy organization, Women Are Revered, or WAR, are planning a boycott and a series of demonstrations surrounding the April exhibition at ALT/SPACE LA. There is even talk of a social media campaign dedicated to denying Currado a visa on the grounds of obscenity!


This exercise in political burlesque must be met forcefully and unambiguously by the art community and by all good people who cherish our first amendment rights. Please make your voices heard.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

SCANDAL IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNA


The year was 1979. Young, brash Currado Malaspina was the toast of Montparnasse. He lived a life of unremorseful dissipation. His monthly reenactments of the Carnevale di Venezia, staged with the florid flourish of campy faux-baroque pageantry, were attended by a veritable who's who of Parisian high and gutter society alike.

These disparate groups were unanimous in their enthusiasm for Curardo and in their avid, if slightly slanted interest in the miscellany of sexual expression. It was precisely in that period when Currado, due more to his art than to his behavior, became a prominent fixture within the European demimonde.

Les Maquettes du Marquis, a series of tactless works-on-paper, produced as a commission for the lavishly libertine Comptesse de Buford, has recently found its way into the estate of Artur Mont-Or, one of southern California's most predatory art collectors. There are rumors circulating among those who know about such things that these rare works will be exhibited for the first time in an undisclosed Los Angeles gallery. 

It is not quite clear whether the works will be for sale.