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An artist’s disillusioned brand strategist seizes the opportunity of an Art Historians Conference to exact revenge on her ex-client and his tactics to advance his reputation at her emotional expense.
Behind the stoic, neoclassical façade of the Metropolitan Art Museum a small scandal unfolds.
Let me confess, right up front, that it was I who tipped off Suzette. The events in Stellenbosch still pain me. And so I felt that I owed her recompense. She deserved to know that, despite her emphatic exit, her ex-client is persisting with their project.
I like to think that the project had begun with sincerity… with genuine inquiry and criticality. However, when I came across Suzette’s letter to him I comprehended the extent of callousness and damage incurred by his continuing obstinacy. An obstinacy which I now believe is fuelled by an urgent and desperate ambition. I wonder, in fact, at the damage that has been done to both of them.
And so I tipped off Suzette. I suggested that she find a way to put a full-stop to the thing. I should not have been surprised at her guile in using the art historian’s conference as an amplifying platform for retributive closure. It was not as though he had not been warned.
I need not elaborate on what he is attempting. Suzette’s revenge is very neatly encapsulated in her description of this latest, questionable gambit. Until her nerves overtook her, that is.
For my part, I’ve presented just a sampling of my evidence to the trustees of the museum in order that they might see through his offer. Suzette has found a necessary measure of objectivity in her exile. Her conference address [above] is a damning public take-down.
The project did not evolve into the high crime that I once anticipated, but it is certainly ethically objectionable. For this, Suzette has exacted a perfectly calibrated sentence.
