CHANDLER: TV portrait of the artist less than flattering
By Mary Voelz Chandler
Published July 6, 2008 at 3 p.m.
Rob Forlenza © HBO
Chuck Connelly has 3,000 paintings and no paying patron.
Prime choice
The Art of Failure Chuck Connelly Not for Sale
* Grade: B
* When and where: 7 p.m. today (also 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and 6 p.m. Thursday), HBO
Some artists know how to manage their careers, while others just can't survive the vagaries of the competitive beast known as the art world.
Put Chuck Connelly firmly in the latter category.
During The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly Not for Sale, a program in the HBO Documentary Films summer series, the '80s shooting star goes through enough turmoil for Job:
* He loses his last paying patron (though said patron also is a bottom feeder as a buyer).
* His wife leaves him.
* He hires an actor to portray him as a different artist who made work years ago under a pseudonym.
* He's left to drink beer and rail into the camera.
Filmmaker Jeff Stimmel's six-year view into the neo-expressionist painter's life is more than just sad - it's exhausting. It's as much an hourlong train wreck as an exploration of an artist's inability to come to grips with a situation he helped create.
Connelly was a minor star in the 1980s, when the art market burned bright with big cash. Connelly's life inspired a segment of the film New York Stories, directed by Martin Scorsese, in which Nick Nolte played the artist and Connelly created the work shown in the film.
When asked about the project later, Connelly blasted film and director to a New York gossip columnist. I would never advise suck-up behavior, but civility toward someone who puts your work in a movie isn't a bad idea.
No surprise: He hasn't had a major show since 1990. When Stimmel asks gallery owners and artists about Connelly, you can feel the frustration. When we leave Connelly, some of whose work is still strong, he's stumbling onto the floor of his studio.
A quick-time look at some of the 3,000 paintings he has in storage makes the conclusion even more depressing, but not as much as having viewed a film in which there's no sense that the subject has learned one thing.
Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677
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