UNETHICAL FATHER FIGURES

Faceless, nameless anonymous sex. Exchanging partners like changing socks. A dissipated life full of momentary gratification but little happiness. A world of wealth but a poverty of well-being. Suffering in the classic sense. A man defeated by his own fame, carried off by the ether of his uncomfortable acclaim.

Such is the myth surrounding my friend Currado Malaspina.

Is it a self-inflicted wound or a carefully orchestrated campaign of marketable misinformation? I know the man well and I confess that I too am unsure.

It is true that Currado has the oily temperament of an unrepentant roué but it is equally true that his business acumen is as sharp as his wit and that he suffers none of the scruples that hinder his moderately ethical peers.

The French are a forgiving lot and so my friend Malaspina has had to set the transgressive window toward the highest rafters of raffishness. His sins are those of a Sardenopolus and the hurts that he has inflicted upon his fellow man (and fellow-woman) have been biblical in scale and diabolical in scope.

And yet, the French eat it all up like a giant stinky wheel of fresh brie. His celebrity and notoriety rival the worst of the American rappers and make your average Russian oligarch look like Albert Schweitzer.

As the French cultural historian Professor Ayn Analie-Meelee wryly pointed out not too long ago in a piece in Paris Hier, "If not him, whom? If not now, when?" (Si ce n'est pas lui, qui? Si ce n'est pas maintenant, quand?). She went on to explain that what seemed unconscionable in the recent past is practically de rigueur today. She claims that in the arts we are in an end of history moment (un épisode du fin de l'histoire) where ideas are merely synopses of narcissism (synopsis du narcissisme) and the formerly menacing cults of personality are now the stuff of quaint trending topics of Twitter.

To be on top one must remain on top and in Currado's case this means a ragged course of constant self-debasement and a relentless supply of oxygen for the engines of infantile public curiosity. 

But for the love of Mike, what the heck is a "synopsis of narcissism??"





 

THE DRY WHIP OF EMPTY FAME

The true measure of emptiness in this heedless age of bleating self-promotion may very well be the 'tweet'. A besotted pendulum sways not with dependable rhythms but with the faithless currents of sexless infatuation. Images and ideas no longer have currency outside the empty aura we appropriately call the"viral."

My dear friend Currado Malaspina is a lonely man dwelling in the past. He no longer knows what to make of all this 'new media'.

He recently found the following on the internet while doing an innocent search for 19th century Celtic limericks: 

Alas, the private life of contemplation is no longer available to him. He now glows vermilion as a ubiquitous presence on social media. After so many years laboring at his craft he has been pitifully reduced to the condition of a cute kitten yawning into a pillow.

Dada is now officially dead. 

BEKAA BECKONS

My good friend Currado Malaspina never leaves his atelier without his Lica V-Lux 30 digital camera and his Schmincke half-pan watercolors. This is especially true during his annual August vacation where he typically takes over 10,000 pictures and fills about two dozen sketchbooks.

Somewhat out of character, Currado decided to spend 15 days at a resort hotel in Sharm el Sheikh.

Poolside at the Kulliyat-e-Hasrat Desert Resort and Casino, Currado Malaspina, 2013

The southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula with its infernal summer heat is not everyone's idea of an ideal location but Currado, always alert to a good bargain jumped at the cut-rate deals. The recent Egyptian coup d'état and the ensuing political uncertainty has seriously impacted the holiday traffic. It seems that Malaspina has had the Kulliyat-e-Hasrat Desert Resort and Casino practically to himself. Aside from the odd south Asian businessman and Gulf State itinerant gambler, the hotel is nearly empty.

Анжелика, Лидия and Светлана, Currado Malaspina, 2013

Apparently the only women at the hotel are a trio of young seminarians from St. Petersburg and a comely young widow from Lebanon who according to Currado, never takes off her large, floppy pink hat.

Zaina wading, Currado Malaspina, 2013

Currado is already talking about buying a new, Fujinon wide-angle 16x zoom lens and although he doesn't ski, I believe he plans on spending next Christmas in Laqlouq.

Zaida afloat, Currado Malaspina, 2013

INCOMPETENT OR OUT OF ELEMENT?

In Currado Malaspina's native France and within the stridulous intellectual milieu in which he uneasily resides, the deep dark fissure between the lofty heights of "fine art" and the purgatorially compromised world of the "commercial" is an unreconciled and irreconcilable breach. In the face of numberless entreaties and innumerable requests my principled friend has never descended into the mercenary world of advertising and illustration. He has always stubbornly clung to the traditional idea of le peintre in that profoundly European way.

At least that has been the case until he began treatment for an enlarged prostate. Between the cracks of les urgences and les médecins généralistes, Currado's aggressive and experimental treatments are not fully covered by La Sécurité Sociale. His mounting medical bills have been putting a profound strain upon his modest fortunes. His prudish imperturbability, by the sheer force of desperate necessity, has moved Currado into the previously uncharted world of retailing his talents.

Commissioned by Presse Pousse to supply an original image for Gilles Grancrâne new novel The Fetid Field (Le Champ Fétide), Currado reluctantly hired a private tutor and learned how to use Photoshop. Inevitably drawn to the traditional flaws of human handiwork, he insisted on incorporating a painterly rendering to go with the glitzy computer generated image.

And so here is an original Malaspina rendition of the traditional author's slipcase portrait.

Gilles Grancrâne from Le Champs Fétide, Currado Malaspina, 2013 (Courtesy of Presse Pousse)

Rumor has it that Grancrâne is apoplectic with what may very well be a wholly justified and understandable rage.

My dear Currado - please get well soon!