Clyfford Still
So maybe this is my week to air art world frustrations. My latest complaint: The newly unveiled Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.
An excerpt about the proposed museum from the Denver Post can be read on Slow Painting. The building concept sounds soulful, more of an invitation to solitude than its brassy, sassy neighbor, the Denver Art Museum, with its angular new Daniel Liebeskind addition.
So yes to a museum that aspires to create a space for “reflection, refuge and intimacy.” But devoted exclusively to the work of Clyfford Still?
Still spent most of his life bucking up against the commercial art mainstream. I’m all for transgressives, but his brand of rebellion had a particular aura of self aggrandizement about it. He was curmudgeonly, demanding that his work be displayed in its own gallery space, under his explicit control.
Here’s an excerpt from an excellent overview on Clyfford Still by Sandy Donabed on Ragged Cloth Cafe:
Still wanted his paintings to be under his own personal control, and did not like them separated from one another or exhibited with other artists’ work. He felt that his paintings could only be understood as part of a whole, with the whole being the evolution of his entire life’s work. This obsession with maintaining absolute control resulted in his rejection of offers to buy his paintings, refusing awards and honors, and declining invitations to exhibit both in individual and group shows. In so doing, with contempt, he rejected the politics of the New York art scene, which for the first time in history had become the international center of the art world.
In his words: “I hold it imperative to evolve an instrument of thought which will aid in cutting through all cultural opiates, past and present, so that a direct, immediate, and truly free vision can be achieved. . .and I affirm my profound concern to achieve a purpose beyond vanity, ambition, or remembrance.”
Beyond vanity, ambition, or remembrance? I don’t think so. I would prefer a contemplative, solitude-encouraging museum as this one aspires to be that housed a variety of transcendent-inducing works by Still AND some of his contemporaries like Rothko, Diebenkorn, Newman, Mitchell, Marden.
I think few people would disagree that telling the Still story in the greater context of his peers is a good idea. However, the stipulations of the Still Estate ditcate that the collection follows Still’s wishes while he was alive — that the eventual home of his works should belong to a city (not a pre-existing museum) and that any galleries created show exclusively Still’s works. No other artist can be hung alongside the Still paintings. It’s kind of a tough nut to crack.
There are only a few dozen of Still’s works housed at other museums, but the ones I can think of — SFMoMA, MoMA, Detroit — all have the works placed in a broader context. Of those, only SFMoMA has more than one on display, though. So, given the initial limitations of the estate, the Still Museum is really the only way that the remaining works will get displayed.
I am speaking out of total ignorance here, but I imagine from what you are saying that he conceived of his paintings like pages of a novel and that every page of the story was necessary to grasp the whole. I think that is sort of an interesting concept. I also imagine he must have lived off a trust fund if he refused to sell any of his paintings, or did I misunderstand? And if he was that independentlly wealthy, I suppose that might contribute to an ease of defiance and grandiosity.
I’m not an expert on Still primarily because he has never been one of my inner sanctum artists. There is a lot of information, both positive and negative, about him and his stipulations available on the Web for those who want to delve deeper into this issue. (And in the way of factual accuracy, it is the Metropolitan Museum that has the room full of Stills in New York , not the MOMA.)
The metaphor of a book, with its pages needed in tact to be appreciated, is provocative. I don’t think (correct me, anyone, if this is not right) that was his issue since he would allow his work to be shown in different locations. He just didn’t want to share the space. Every artist who operates in that large arc arena is drawn to the idea that you need to be drawn into their work completely. Wagnerian style total submersion is, for some, the only way to present the expanse and spaciousness of their artistic vision. (There’s evidence in this view of envy for the lights out, captive audience experience of theatre.)
Still taught art but he probably had some deep pockets to support him in this ivory tower, “my way or no way” positioning. Whether it was money or a devoted widow, it eventually led to the successful outcome of a single artist museum, one of the few in this country. (There are several minor artists who have single artists museums, but few of Still’s reputation and stature.)
The only other art world kerfuffle over extreme stipulations is of course the Barnes Foundation. And as we can see from where that has ended up lately, it is rarely dealt with in a clean and straightforward manner. So Still’s future is secured, and Denver has a new museum. I’ll stop in when I pass through. But my view remains: An opportunity lost.
I hmphd to myself from beginning to end of this post and the comments. At the MOMA last October I had an unforgettable feeling, a total unreconstructed flabbergast, upon walking into a small gallery room, spinning around to get my bearings, and suddenly facing the MOMA’s massive, light-suckingly black Still on the one side of the doorway, and a massive hunk of yellow Rothko on the other. I don’t know why or what for, but those two pieces struck the utter fear of god in my heart. I’m too lazy to look up that clever word for the phenomenon that struck Victorian ladies of delicate constitution overcome in museums full of erotic art, but that’s essentially what happened to me in front of those two paintings, and I ain’t ashamed to say it.
What I’m saying is, Screw you, Clyfford Still. We own your work now and that piece is exactly where it should be.