A TRIBUTE TO TZVI MALASPINA

Tzvi Malaspina in his Jerusalem garden, 1965

In 1983, in a dingy basement apartment in Jerusalem’s German Colony, “Le Societe de Lecteurs de Fernando Pessoa” was born. Presiding over its inaugural meeting was Israel’s prominent Dante specialist Tzvi Malaspina. The founding charter of this loosely knit guild of intellectuals and artists had as its stated goal the preservation of the creative ethic of what they called “delicate aggression.” “The frail imperfection of the life of the mind remains a palpable revolutionary posture,”*  was the opening gambit of this predictably flawed manifesto, “and no artist exemplifies this frailty better than the Portuguese poet Pessoa.” Currado, whose devotion to his octagenarian uncle was both touching and pathological, vainly struggled to revise this cloying alliteration, but was thwarted by his defective Hebrew.

In “The Book Of Disquiet” Pessoa wrote: “Not only do I feel that the verses I write do not satisfy me, but I know that the verses I am about to write will not satisfy me either. I know it both philosophically and physically, through an obscure, gladioli-festooned intuition.”

To Tzvi Malaspina, may his blessed memory be cherished and revered; this was the worthwhile life’s delicious affliction.

* L’imperfection fragile de la vie de l’esprit reste une posture révolutionnaire viable

חוסר שלמותו השברירי של החיים של הנפש נשאר יציבה מהפכנית אמיתית

L’enfer

Lanier Christian Smith, convicted in Texas for the brutal 1986 murder of three sisters of the Order of St. Cyprian was finally executed in the spring of 2012. After years of petitions, appeals and 2 eleventh hour friend of the court briefs, Smith was put to rest by lethal injection in the smaller of two Windward Correctional Center execution chambers.

 The fact that he was innocent seems to have bothered no one.

Portrait of Lanier Christian Smith Shorty Before (or after) his Execution by Lethal Injection. 2012. Currado Malaspina

Like Twinkies and monogamy the French look at America’s continued use of capital punishment as evidence of its cultural barbarism. Jean-Claude Panique, the eminent social historian and author of the classic “Pourquoi suis-je le droit” (Gaufres Editions, 2000) describes the United States as “a country of “God toting, gun fearing fatsos” (dondons brutal peur de dieu).

The French, (where 20% of the population typically vote for the xenophobic ultra-right wing Front National), are indeed quite charming in their ability to state the obvious.

Which brings me to my good friend Currado Malaspina.

Unsatisfied with the predictable jingoistic carping that masquerades as discourse in his beloved country, Currado has set out to research and record the sad citizens of America’s Death Row. Like Tocqueville before him he finds much to admire in the American people and his recent project is more of an expression of love than a cynical swipe at a glaring target.

Portraits of the Damned (Visages des damnés) is a series of quick and poignant sketches of convicted killers. When I saw these works for the first time I was literally moved to tears. Currado, like Virgil, takes us on a horrifying tour of human refuse. And like Dante’s damned, in Currado’s hand, each sinner’s image is tinted in a shroud of frailty and warmth.

THE TRAGIC SIDE OF MALASPINA

Portrait of Currado Malaspina, 2012, Dahlia Danton (collection of the artist)

I saw Currado Malaspina in Paris a few weeks ago and as we sat nibbling on some mitonée d’escargots du lard at Le Bistro de Breteuil I made a quick watercolor portrait on the back of some hotel stationary.

Currado Malaspina has a permanent snarl. His voice is a royal trumpet of ambition. His commanding passion for painting, “the prince of the arts,” as he calls it, comes with a silver current of sadness just short of bitterness. The captains of industry with their mighty fortunes have flocked to his work like bilious birds of prey, dulling the fine edge of Currado’s considerable ardor. “Commodity, the bias of the world,” intones the Bastard in Shakespeare’s King John. Malaspina while seized in a wolf’s rage scrawled that quote on the ceiling of his Rue Biot studio.

He’s a man at odds with a self, vanquished by the cannon-shot of passing time. He has not aged gracefully. The stouter, younger Currado of the School of Pestilence years has been consigned to the imperfect instruments of memory. Newspaper clippings, crumpled manifestoes, exhibition catalogs, snapshots and three (or is it four) marriage certificates, each issued in a different European capital, are the mementos of a misery that can only be ransomed by work.

He is puppet and puppeteer in a woeful shadow play redeemed only by the triumph of his paintings and prints. He has never forgiven life for its distraction at the expense of his art.

A TRIBUTE TO TZVI MALASPINA

Tzvi Malaspina, conté on paper, Currado Malaspina, 1998

In 1983, in a dingy basement apartment in Jerusalem’s German Colony, “Le Societe de Lecteurs de Fernando Pessoa” was born. Presiding over its inaugural meeting was Currado Malaspina’s glass-eyed uncle and Israel’s prominent Dante specialist Tzvi Malaspina. The founding charter of this loosely knit guild of intellectuals and artists had as its stated goal the preservation of the creative ethic of what they called “delicate aggression.”

“The frail imperfection of the life of the mind remains a viably revolutionary posture,”was the opening gambit of this predictably flawed manifesto, “and no artist exemplifies this frailty better than the Portuguese poet Pessoa.” Currado, whose devotion to his octagenarian uncle was both touching and pathological, vainly struggled to revise this cloying alliteration, but was thwarted by his defective Hebrew.

In “The Book Of Disquiet” Pessoa wrote: “Not only do I feel that the verses I write do not satisfy me, but I know that the verses I am about to write will not satisfy me either. I know it both philosophically and physically, through an obscure, gladioli-festooned intuition.”

To Tzvi Malaspina, may his blessed memory be cherished and revered; this was the worthwhile life’s delicious affliction.

THE EARLY YEARS

Portrait of Sordello Malaspina, Matisse, 1939 (Private Collaection)

His eyes got moist and his voice cracked whenever he spoke of his father. In 1930’s Paris, Sordello Malaspina was one of the most renown accordion players on the musette cafe scene. He knew everyone. Blaise Cendrars wrote lyrics to his lilting melodies. Django Reinhardt stabbed him in the throat after a game of clubs. Coctaeu did a short film about him and his mistress, the photographer Yvette Charles. Henry Miller actually lived with him for a while and Picasso engraved his portrait on a bicycle seat.

During World War II, Sordello joined the resistance, lost a foot to frostbite and fathered a baby boy.

Currado Malaspina was born in Paris shortly after Liberation and was raised by a series of aunts, orphanages, prostitutes and newly discharged American GI’s. His father was in and out of his life depending on the mercurial fortunes of the local music business. At sixteen, Currado quit school moved to Marseille and found work as a longshoreman. It was there that he discovered his talent for drawing.

Diagonally Devoted: An Oblique Appreciation

The Eighty Stations of Ecstasy by Micah Carpentier, 1974

A number of years ago, after a long boozy night with a group of painters including the Cuban/Italian expatriate Micah Carpentier, I found myself alone with the famously trenchant artist and found it favorable to raise a practical question which had been giving me no small degree of distress. “Do you really find it necessary,” I asked, “as you wrote in your essay on Currado Malaspina, for an artist to work obsessively, relentlessly, tirelessly and prolifically?” He was preparing to jaywalk across Prince Street and duck into the subway, and while eying the traffic he sardonically drawled through the corner of his crooked mouth: “I was talking about Malaspina. For most artists, the most important thing to do is to work as little as possible.”

PRELUDE

Portrait of Jasmine, Dahlia Danton 1999

“Like Saint Augustine’s good friend Alypius, I am a recidivist with an unfortunate appetite for cruelty. My few friends call me Currado … and you are?”

After the lecture the crowd spilled out into Avenue A and the poet Jasmine Epstein and I were comparing notes when Malaspina, ignoring me, cloddishly interrupted our conversation.
Stunned by the erudition of his discourteousness, Jasmine remained speechless long enough to embolden a fuller interrogation. “Are you romantically involved with this or any other individual,” he heedlessly asked while pointing a stubby finger in my direction. This improbable overture elicited such a wild burst of impulsive laughter that Currado, completely unembarrassed, ardently joined in.

“This is the artist Dahlia Danton and my name is Jasmine. I am a kick-boxer specializing in sestinas  and would be more than happy to indulge you in your bloodlust.”
“Splendid!” squealed Currado with shameless adolescent enthusiasm.

DOPPELGANGER

Currado Malaspina. (Courtesy of the D. Deliquasse Estate)

Malaspina bore an uncanny physical resemblance to Maximianus, the 6th century bishop who dedicated the church of San Vitale and whose mosaic image was being projected at the very moment the fateful spill had occurred. Malaspina and Maximianus shared the same bushy eyebrows, the same bald head and the same soaring ears, the kind of ears that look like the oars of an elliptical rowboat. His eyes were wide and alert and like Maximianus, his forehead was permanently furrowed as if his skin were raked by an unsteady hand. His cheeks, like the bishop’s were somewhere between bearded and unshaven but far from unkempt. Even his long woolen scarf looked medieval as it draped over his coat like a chasuble, eerily duplicating the robes of Ravenna’s most eminent ecclesiast.

LECTUS INTERRUPTUS

Currado Malaspina as he looked in the late 1970's

Professor Sacks was a lugubrious man with dark rings under his eyes and lids so heavy they looked like garage doors. He was midway into his lecture, pointing to a projected slide with what looked like a weathered chopstick when a loud crash was heard from the back of the room. “Shust who do you think you are?” said Dr. Sacks in a voice that seemed more plaintive than admonishing. I remember thinking at the time that our esteemed art historian, though brilliant, was totally helpless in a world where talking your way out of a parking ticket was a more valuable skill than the ability to compose lyric verse in perfect terza rima. “I am completely certain that I am Currado Malaspina!” bellowed the voice from the rear where a tall man in a long black overcoat stood hovering over a moonscape of spilled nuts and shallow rivulets of lemonade.

By Way Of Introduction, (but I’m already getting ahead of myself)

The circumstances surrounding my first encounter with Currado Malaspina were as odd as they were delightful. Disinclined toward the mystical, I am not one to affix any special meaning to coincidence. I have always satisfied my need for revelation with the rational. Improbable events are always fully illuminated through the unfaltering laws of probability.

Or so I thought till the evening of January 22nd, 1995 when I attended a lecture by the preeminent Byzantine scholar Lothar Sacks, on the mosaics of San Vitale.

Lothar Sacks, oil on canvas, Dahlia Danton 1998

The lecture took place in the dim and damp basement of the Ukrainian/American Association, on First Avenue and Avenue A in downtown Manhattan. Lothar Sacks was a small legend among those who felt more alive to the 8th century than to our own and the basement was filled to capacity. The room was set up with six rows of bridge chairs, an awkwardly small lectern which looked more suitable for the stump speech of a child, and an oversized TV tray in the back with a pitcher of lemonade, a stack of gray Dixie cups and a large wooden bowl filled with red pistachio nuts.

I don’t remember much of the Sacks’ presentation aside from the fact that I was surprised when I found that such a distinguished Medieval scholar had a speech impediment that bent his “J’s” into “SH’s” turning the Emperor Justinian into the even more impressive Emperor Shustinian.