COMMITMENT

Things are looking up for my good friend Currado Malaspina.

The tentative rapprochement with his erstwhile collaborator Dahlia Danton now looks, on the surface, like a fait accompli.  

They have put their aesthetic differences behind them (at least for now) and have decided to resume their artistic collaboration (albeit on a trial basis).

As most of my readers remember, together with the likes of Komar and Melamid, Gilbert and George, Harvin and Fitzsimmons and the Starn Twins, Danton & Malaspina were a fixture in the late 20th century Creative Couplet Movement.

As reported by veteran arts pundit Sergei Sergie in the culture blog Rough Toast, the pair were informally invited to submit a proposal to the forthcoming aRCHIVE (13) exhibition tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2015. 

Few people have forgotten their politically charged pieces from aRCHIVE (12). Casting the leaders of the G8 nations as protagonists in pet portraits, Danton & Malaspina challenged the whole notion of sovereignty, global resources and the so-called war on terror.

Like many simpleminded tendentious works of art, it created a burlesque atmosphere of scandal and recrimination.

Puppy, Danton & Malaspina, 2011

If not for the deft damage control by the two chief curators, Jimmy De Stantio and Marta Castelammuffito the exhibition might have been shut down. The publicity was fantastic but neither Malaspina nor Danton could handle the tumultuous aftermath. They cracked under the strain and ended their partnership amid mutually acrimonious accusations of aesthetic betrayal and commercial capitulation.

Though Danton thrived as a solo act (she has representation in three different cities including Foucault/Hurston in New York), Currado never seemed to recover (he is currently teaching).

I suppose it's just a matter of temperament.