At some exhibition openings the calibre of the crowd that you draw is almost as important as what you draw. But partitioning your launch party into two zones – one for the beautiful and one for the ugly – seems a mite extreme.

That’s what the painter Jasper Joffe has decreed for the January 19 launch of his new exhibition, Beauty Show, at the V22 Gallery in East London – one part of the guestlist has been reserved for “models” and the other for “ugly” people. Those who think that they fit either category can send Joffe a photo to consider.

It certainly takes the expression “face policy” (and “clipboard Nazi”) to a new level. Maybe, for the sake of one’s self-esteem, this is one party to which it’s better not to be invited. But miss the show and you’ll miss Joffe’s paintings of leggy, doe-eyed models, inspired by images in Vogue in the Seventies and Eighties. That’s the beauty part of the show; the ugly involves portraits of some morally scarred figures, such as Himmler.

Joffe is trying to cast aspersions on today’s relentless pursuit for aesthetic beauty by the fashion industry. He calls it “fashism”. But as I wait to find out what zone I’ll be in, I call it nerve-racking.

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