LOOKING AT ART WITH SPARK: Number 101

The agon is as old as the agora and just as tiger fish swallow the minnow so too with artists. It is a time honored tradition for the graves of the so-called masters to be desecrated by pretenders to the throne. That some are not merely pretenders, only history can arbitrate, but among the living, artistic insurrections are a blood sport like no other.

Basil Zukofsky in his Greenpoint studio 2014

Take the case of Basil Zukofsky, the twenty-five year old enfant terrible of the M.F.A. postpartum set. While still at Yale he reportedly infuriated his professors by scheduling his extensive New York exhibitions in May, making his work unavailable for the semester's final review. "Don't worry," he once told a dumbstruck adjunct, "The Times said the work was fine."

The Recovery of Beauty, acrylic on masonite, Basil Zukofsky, 2014

There is no denying that Zukofsky has talent, his recent offerings at Volta NY were evidence enough of his raw and visceral abilities. Ideas, of course, are a different story. Some find it perfectly acceptable when an artist openly usurps another's concepts and makes it their own but most would agree that outright, unabashed larceny is an unpardonable offense even among thieves.

The overworked axiom that there is no such thing as bad publicity never seemed more justified when it was revealed that Zukofsky's monumental The Recovery of Beauty a 24 foot wide behemoth of allusion and appropriation was in fact a mere enlargement of Los Angeles painter David Schoffman's earlier and more intimate The Architect's Will.

The Architect's Will, oil on linen, David Schoffman 2003

Zukofsky shrugged off the allegations implausibly explaining that any similarity to Schoffman's work was merely coincidental. Citing the unconscious imprint of Ronnie Mack's She's So Fine on George Harrison's My Sweet Lord, the young painter claimed he was innocent of outright imitation. 'Inanimate homage' was the phrase he (or his legal team) coined to explain the uncanny similarities. The ensuing scandal only elevated Zukofsky's stock while the elder statesman Schoffman was depicted in the press as a bitter curmudgeon attempting to awkwardly bask in the young art star's reflected phosphorescence.

And so while Zukofsky's Recovery of Beauty adjusts to its new climate controlled surroundings in the Latif Pavillion of Contemporary Art in Dubai Schoffman's Architect is probably still languishing in some dark corner of the Beverly Hills home of Gina and Howard Rakosi where it has quietly resided for over a decade.