Fate inclined David Schoffman toward the claws of obscurity until thirty years ago when L’Ecole de la Peste” was founded in Brussels. Together with the tyrannical Currado Malaspina and the irritable Micah Carpentier, Schoffman turned the honest anguish of art making into a giddy form of naked hucksterism.

 

Known for their callow and maudlin manifestoes, the movement enjoyed an improbable string of scandalous successes. From the now infamous 1980 “Soft Zephyrs” exhibition at Gallarie Carreau Cassé in Lyon to the sadly uncivil public attacks on the scions of French academic painting, Brunin, Rudel and de Couci, “La Bande de la Peste”, as they were later known, convulsed themselves into a coarse notoriety.

 

Luckily, Schoffman enjoys the singular charm of a facile hand and a flashy flair for color, making his early pieces something greater than feckless.