GOOD FOOD BAD ART

As certain as the steel blue winter light annuls the golden umbers of autumn so do the sage rational reflections of old age cancel the callow impulses youth.

Unless, of course, your name is Currado Malaspina.

If your name is Currado Malaspina you ungracefully evolve into caricature and that which had been tolerated while young is now openly mocked without pity.

In a recent interview appearing in the periodical L'art pour l'art he talked about the genesis of I Modi,  those awkward graphic bulletins of impotence and its discontent .

"Despite my complete antipathy toward nature I spend inordinate amounts of time at the beach.

"Though I'm generally repelled, I troll the crowded shores hoping to feed my clichéd fantasies and restore my dwindling appetites. 

"When I happen upon the rare conjunction of concupiscence and farce, I seize the moment and discreetly snap a few photos.

 
 "Foregrounding the tragedy of my vanished vigor, I find the ensuing mortal crisis both humiliating and restorative. It is only by the mysterious magic of drawing do I retrieve, however fleetingly, the hardiness of my youth.

"That I am able to parlay this into serious art is merely the custard on the canelé ."

 

SOMETHING SMELLS FUNNY

The preferred diction of my tortured friend Currado Malaspina is rage and indignation. It matters little whether he is trying to talk his way out of a parking ticket, complaining to the maitre d'hotel about a tepid bisque or delivering an impassioned jeremiad in front of a lecture hall of artworld malcontents, Currado is always inflamed.

Those of us who know him never take his tone too seriously so when he started off a few months ago about some vague and seemingly harmless copyright infringement we all shrugged it off as just another one of his fugitive tantrum.

It was only later did we learn of XinQin Enterprises in Shanghai and how it brazenly appropriated one of Currado's signature images to promote its new line of inexpensive fragrences.

Acrobat, the line in question, is manufactured in Malaysia, distributed through Hong Kong and can be found in department stores from Delhi to Dubai. The image is fairly dim and I suppose they thought no one would notice. But Currado has a nose for grievances especially when it comes to eau de toilette.

When he took them to court they successfully claimed that it was within the bounds of utilisation correcte. Currado tried to introduce the original drawing as evidence but it was ruled inadmissible because of it's "objectionable content."

Meanwhile XinQin got a boatload of free publicity while Currado was dragged into the litigious world of jurisprudential dog shit.

Nobody came out smelling very good.