TALL TALES TALL BUILDINGS

Rue Gouttefrais, St. Jaen-pla-de-corts

Some people can't believe that my dear friend Currado Malaspina grew up in St. Jean-pla-de-corts. He doesn't have a trace of an accent. His small town roots are not something he advertises. He rarely goes back there to visit but when he does he makes it a point to make a little sketch of the street where he lived as a child. 

Rue Gouttefrais does not have five-story buildings but in Currado's renderings he imagines a street that does. It is an expression of what the Italian philosopher Italo Schachi called "memoria ambiziosa"  - the primal impulse that is at the root of lying ("l'impulso primordiale che è alla radice della menzogna"). 

I've known Currado for nearly 50 years and the one consistent attribute that he carries with him from youth to old age is his mendacity.

At least he leaves us with some pretty decent watercolors.

 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

My dear friend Currado Malaspina has been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles. His rue d'A'bbeville flat is being renovated after a water main burst and flooded his bedroom and library. I feel for him. I have a lot of compassion for him. Nobody deserves that type of misfortune, even if that type of misfortune pales in comparison with other, more dire calamities.

Currado has been staying with me. He's sleeping on my couch and he follows me every day into the studio. He photographs me. He does sketches of me while I drink my coffee and eat my bagel. He rides shotgun in my car and turns off NPR because he claims his English isn't good enough to understand it.

He sneaks into my studio in the middle of the night and turns all his sketches and his photographs into large drawings whose subject is the uneventful nature of my life. He says that a French artist would never live like I live. A French artist, he says, would drink an espresso every morning at his neighborhood Tabac and trade gossip with the locals. He says a French artist would make a bigger production of lunch and not content himself with half a peanut butter sandwich and an apple.

He says that the way I live offends him and that he can't wait to return to Paris.

At last we agree.

  

DRAWING: A REASSESSMENT

 

On a recent trip to the United States, my dear friend Currado Malaspina took in a Yankee game (or maybe it was a Knick game), met with his principal dealer, Doloras Shem-Totan, and made a few sketches in his various notebooks.

I sat for him, as did various other colleagues and acquaintances.

The whole process got us thinking.

Currado Malaspina's Chez-d'oeuvre inconnu

My dear comrade Currado Malaspina sees himself as a modern day Frenhofer.

The truth is, he has all the tragedy and none of the talent.

His recent artist book inspired by Balzac's classic fable is charming and sad in equal measure.

 

@currado6

Much to my astonishment, the decaying, calcified, out-of-step luddite, Currado Malaspina has joined the ranks of TikTok influencers. 

This is both good and bad news.

On the good side, it signals his sentience.

The bad side is all too obvious.

THE LAST OF THE GREAT FLÂNEURS

My dear, eccentric comrade Currado Malaspina, is a relic. He has no cell phone and therefore, no Google Maps. His complete absence from life online has given him no other alternative than to adhere to actual, physical existence. Without texting apparatus or email he is forced to communicate (he is comfortable in at least four languages) with articulated words spoken in full or near-full sentences.

His attention span is still intact and his memory is unfailing. Though he owns a bicycle, he prefers to walk.

As he walks, on occasion he stops, and when he stops he sketches.

Above is an old accordion notebook annotated in english. 

 

The Sweet Guide - La Dolce Guida. Dante & Malaspina