HAGIOGRAPHY

The grand atelier of Currado Malaspina at 93 rue Clapeyron is, among other things, a shrine to Micah Carpentier.

Shortly after the great Cuban artist's death, Currado saw to it that Carpentier's assets remain fluid. The Cuban government made no secret of its intention to fossilize both Micah and his work, declaring his Avenida 20 de Mayo studio a national landmark and a public museum. This, of course, would have consigned what little Carpentier left behind to the spiders and cockroaches. Currado, in what remains  to date his one and only noble endeavor, lobbied UNESCO to intervene.

And so it is that Micah Carpentier's  eccentric furniture, his votive candles, his personal momentos and his beloved, ill-tuned piano all reside in the 8th Arrondissement.

What remains of his work, the paper bags - the Chinese take-out drawings, the 48 Stations of Ecstasy - are scattered throughout the world and it will be the thankless  task of some venerable future scholar to finally assemble this work into a coherent whole.

The definitive Micah Carpentier still dwells within a Latin shroud of mystery and I for one do not trust Currado Malaspina to guard and maintain this legacy.

Micah Carpentier at work. Havana 1971

RIMBAUD'S TEARS

The brilliant concert pianist, Philippa Monte-Zahav, in addition to practically owning the twenty-four miniature masterpieces known as Chopin's Preludes (Telmas Records 1999) is an unapologetic exhibitionist. To put it bluntly, she loves to take off her clothes.

Brouillard D'Après-Midi, Currado Malaspina, 2011

She is the subject, and perhaps even the object, of Currado's latest series of works entitled Larme.

They met a few years back in Madrid at a dinner party hosted by the legendary saloon singer, Baku Epstein. They knew each other by reputation and were immediately struck by how many people they had in common. Malaspina was in town delivering a series of talks at the Prado on 7th century BC Etruscan Kantharos whose high curving vertical handles he once likened to "les seins du grand-mère." Monte-Zahav was there recording Satie's Sarabandes.

Currado claims he was drawn to the pianist because he found her so uncannily sexless. She remembers their early encounters rather differently but it was in Madrid where the germ of the Larme project originated.

It took a few years for the two of them to coordinate their heavily congested schedules but thanks to a grant from the French Ministry of Archived Scores and Texts (Bureau des Textes et Partitions Archivées) Currado Malaspina and Philippa Monte-Zahav were able to put all their projects on hold and complete this amazing collaboration.

"It's one thing to pay an art model," Malaspina explained to me recently over a plate of marinated olives at Allard on Saint-André-des-Arts, "it's quite another when an amateur so avidly insists on baring all without scruple. Sensuality becomes  clinical, mannered and theatrical and the frisson between artist and motif is altered beyond recognition."

I see his point.