How does one begin to explain an artist, a man, an intellectual of the traditional French Left who spends the lion's share of his time passing off trifling doodles depicting himself in his trademark white blazer and Christmas green woolen scarf standing in the company of young, naked, beautiful women?
Surely these little cartoons aren't meant to be read as a chronicle of actual events! And if they are, why is a man, formally esteemed for his urbanity and discretion, displaying such a coarse disregard for his female protagonists?
Are we to conclude that these trifles now constitute the sum of Currado's current oeuvre? Has he slipped and descended into the tedium of memoir? Have his pictorial skills declined to such a degree that all we can expect are insipid fantasies and monotonous aggrandizement?
Or could it be that these graphic bagatelles are meant to be ironic. More than one critic has advanced this far-fetched thesis.
Georgette Octave as recently as last week wrote in the arts journal Compte vraiment le quotidien that Malaspina may be the strongest feminist voice within the contemporary discourse.
Invoking an archaic metaphor from the Second Republic she proposes that "his old coffee seems strangely new." (Son vieux café semble étrangement nouvelle). She goes on to describe how 'nimbly' Currado deconstructs the threadbare, formulaic conceptions of droit du seigneur.
Maybe yes, maybe no but one thing is certain. If the infamous roué, Currado Malaspina can persuade radical and strident women within the academy and the press that he's on their side of the barricades then he more than deserves his legendary reputation as the consummate charmer.
Are we to conclude that these trifles now constitute the sum of Currado's current oeuvre? Has he slipped and descended into the tedium of memoir? Have his pictorial skills declined to such a degree that all we can expect are insipid fantasies and monotonous aggrandizement?
Or could it be that these graphic bagatelles are meant to be ironic. More than one critic has advanced this far-fetched thesis.
Georgette Octave as recently as last week wrote in the arts journal Compte vraiment le quotidien that Malaspina may be the strongest feminist voice within the contemporary discourse.
Invoking an archaic metaphor from the Second Republic she proposes that "his old coffee seems strangely new." (Son vieux café semble étrangement nouvelle). She goes on to describe how 'nimbly' Currado deconstructs the threadbare, formulaic conceptions of droit du seigneur.
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