THE HARD CHOICES OF AN HONEST CRITIC

Malaspina

There's a great line from Currado Malaspina, the whimsical, somewhat marginal contemporary French painter that goes something like this:

"We extort from the man the child within only to badger the man with childish false tribute"

(I think I got that right. The original reads "Nous extorquer de l'homme dans l'enfant que pour harceler l'homme avec un faux hommage enfantin" and that's the best I could do with three years of high school French.)

I think what he means (and one is never too sure what Malaspina means) is that when we become adults we foolishly wager on a sagacity that rarely ever arrives. (Case in point: Currado Malaspina).

Palimpseste (Le livre), Currado Malaspina 2014

I'd like to think that I will remain open to wisdom and radical revision when I'm as old as Currado. Unfortunately, the world of art journalism frowns upon openness and intellectual reevaluation.

Typically a critic stakes his or her ideological claim and never dares budging from it. It's a matter of paycheck versus dispassion, a steady byline versus purgatorial obscurity. Let's face it, there's not a lot of work out there for art critics so it's wise to find one's niche and stick to it. 

My parents always warned me that the adult world was one of compromise and accommodation. I guess I'll just tuck myself in as the "curious curmudgeon with a soft spot for kitsch."



Promiscuous mercenary and humorless purist  were already taken when I got into this business and the fallback friendly philistine just seemed way too easy.